After dinner the Sable was left to wash the dishes. Given the late hour Professor Shikashi often fell back into a routine of observing the stars while night still cloaked the land. It was a fair system though as he often performed household tasks during day while she took care of matters at night. As she pulled the plug in the sink to expel the dishwater, her ears pricked up at another sound. There was always a patch of earth that remained untiled near the entrance to the observatory. The soft soil was out of place completely unless one knew of the bewitched creature that emerged from it. The earth parted as an old scarecrow emerged from the ground and settled in the soil.

"Happy birthday kid!" sang the scarecrow as he twirled on his pole.

"Thanks Pierre," she put a stack of clean dishes in a cupboard "Good to see you again, found any more pleasant music?"

"Sadly not this time around, lucky I made it today. I accidently danced into the Trade Post again and I swear, if that guy makes me dance for his customers again I'm gonna freak! So here I am!"

"Where did you go this time Pierre, to the sandy western shores to chill with the Indigo-Gos or maybe the southern swamp to visit Koume and Kotake?"

"Neither kid, I headed north this time! Spring in the mountains is incredible! I hung out with a bunch of me Goron mates and caught up with them all." Pierre then twisted down, mimicking the gesture of leaning in close to whisper a secret "Actually for my next trip I'm thinking of going east, to the Valley. I heard the greatest Terminan composers to ever live are buried out there. As a fellow music lover, I need to pay my respects."

Sable noticed the professor enthralled by work to notice them "Why are you whispering this?"

"You mean you don't know about Ikana? Even with all that reading and studying you do?" she shook her head to him "Really?" Pierre then twisted dramatically "Well kid, consider this my birthday present to you. I'm going to tell you the story of Ikana, now take a seat and listen." He waved his arms dramatically "Long ago, in a time before the Giants were accepted as the guardians of Termina, there was a clan of magic wielders, the brightest and best of Terminans who lived in the eastern valley. They called themselves the Ikana and worshipped the old deities, the Golden Goddesses. With time their kingdom was divided as some favoured the powers of darkness while others favoured the light. Those who favoured darkness soon came to worship different gods, or the Giants as we now know them, and shunned the Golden Goddesses. However this didn't sit too well with the other side so the Ikana called them the Interlopers, so they took this name and called themselves the Gomess. Really stubborn lot they were, they fought so much that it took the power of a demon to end the war between them." Pierre then laughed nervously "Of course, it meant that the Ikana are now cursed with undeath while the Gomess were banished from Termina."

Sable leant in closer, eyes wide with wonder "But where did the demon come from?"

"You know when you look east, you see those big towers, the Gomess built those, no idea why or how, but apparently it opened a gateway to a different realm." Pierre paused dramatically "A place where time stands still and the wild deities roam, the Twilight Realm."

"So it wasn't a demon then, was it a wild deity?"

"If an ethereal creature from beyond the veil of time and space comes here for the sole purpose of killing everyone… I think that makes it a demon." Pierre laughed to himself "Just saying."

"And it came out of the towers!?" Sable shook her head "But those towers are still there, you can see them from anywhere in Termina, right? Why are they still standing if they opened a portal to this Twilight Realm?"

Pierre ended with a reluctant sigh "Sorry kid, I just know that bit of the story and none of the details. Maybe you should go ask Koume and Kotake, they've been alive long enough to actually meet the Gomess who fled the east before the curse was released."

The two names were familiar as Sable had heard them in Pierre's tall tales and in passing comment from the professor. Yet there were no faces to put to them and she questioned whether she would want to meet them. From the descriptions of the various tales it sounded as though they were witches.

"Pierre, when did you get here?" Professor Shikashi remarked as he headed to the kitchen for a coffee refill "Also stop scaring Sable with such stories."

Pierre folded his straw arms over his torso "It ain't stories, it's history and one that everyone has forgotten." He pouted as best he could with a permanently smiling face "You can't erase history pal. Coz you can't know the road ahead unless you know where you've been"

"Too true Pierre" the professor turned to Sable "Isn't it about time you were in bed?"

Sable answered politely "I think I'll star gaze for a bit, then head off."

"Alright then"

"Thanks again for the necklace Gramps, see you Pierre and thanks for the story." Sable retrieved a notebook from her desk then climbed up the ladder to head out onto the observation deck of the Astral Observatory.


The sky mimicked diamond studded velvet while the full moon clasped the darkness over Termina. From the observation deck one could see the Clock Tower and the walls of the main city. Verdant fields encircled the walls before diversifying into different environments the closer it came to a compass point. Sable turned to the east to see the ominous towers rising from the horizon. The sight of those stones penetrating the sky always ignited curiosity. However the desolate wastes of the valleys deterred most from venturing further than the eastern gate of Clock Town. There had been tales of Goron and Deku travellers circling to the west as they migrated north and south to avoid travelling anywhere near the valleys. Oddly enough no one could offer any explanation as to why they did this other than the land was cursed.

Folklore in Termina mostly revolved around a collection of gods as well as the moon or darkness and the sun or light. Their main gods were the Giants, the guardians of their land whose spirits resided in the temples found the furthest lands of the south, north, east and west. There were also the lesser gods, lesser because they are acknowledged but not worshipped. These were called the fierce or wild deities that took on all manner of shapes and forms. The common factors of them all were that they were unpredictable and extremely powerful.

Given the story Pierre had told her, Sable now knew these deities migrated from this Twilight Realm. She continued to make notes in her book, a hobby of hers as she collected stories from the races of Termina. Due to her diseased appearance she had sought solace in the realm of academia for most of her life. Her natural curiosity motivated her various projects but her lack of freedom to travel beyond Clock Town hindered her efforts. She cautiously gazed over at the towers to the east once more. Even though she was behind high iron fences to keep the monsters at bay, she still felt vulnerable by gazing at them.

"The Stone Towers haven't changed a bit." Sable froze up, wildly looking around for the owner of the voice. It sounded like a noblewoman but had a certain casual charm to it "You know, the towers of the east you're so scared of. I don't understand why."

Sable continued to look "Who? …Where are you?"

"Can't you tell, I'm right here," the pendant around her neck began to float "I'm speaking to you beyond the grave using this fused shadow."

"But… who are you?"

"My name is Midna, I lived in the era that saw the downfall of Ikana and I was an Arch Mage of the Gomess." The pendant pointed in the direction of the Stone Towers "That was built by the Gomess to act as a gateway to the heavens so we could confront the Golden Goddesses, instead it became a portal to the Twilight Realm."

"Can you show yourself?" Sable suggested nervously, necklace remaining suspended in the air "It's just, I look a little crazy by talking to my pendant. Why are you talking to me anyway?"

"Why indeed?" A ghostly spectre manifested before her to unveil a tall and beautiful woman. Her skin had a silver hue and her eyes and hair were the colour of fire. Braids cascaded down her elegant form all ending in silver hoops etched with unknown runes. Black robes hugged her curves and were edged with blue patterns, the pendant was also resting around her neck.

Sable was overwhelmed by this visage "Your eyes… and skin…"

Midna looked her over and sighed, almost disappointed "Wow, amazing what a few millennia of breeding does to your race. Then again," she knelt down to Sable's level "You're just a half breed."

"A half breed of what exactly?"

Midna threw her arms up in the air "Do I have to spell it out for you? I thought you were a bright one?"

Sable looked to the ground, trembling as she asked "Am I a Gomess? Is that why there's not many others like me?"

"Well, you're perhaps the purest blood Gomess in this era right now. Your father was a pureblood of the highest calibre, it's why he has this necklace." Midna gestured to her spectral copy of the pendant "Most Terminans these days don't even realise they're part Gomess, but it's only really a tiny sliver so it's usually an aesthetic thing." she knelt down to Sable's level and smirked "You on the other hand, can be so much more. The fact that I can talk to you through the fused shadow is a sign."

Now that Sable thought about it she could not recall any memory of what either of her parents looked like. So perhaps this ghostly visage was shedding a light of truth on her clouded life. She chose her next words carefully, to keep the spirit talking, "What exactly do you think I can do?"

"The magic of the Gomess is linked to the Twilight Realm and divides into two forms. The official titles are accito ad vesperam or the art of manipulating darkness and therianthropism." Midna proudly informed "The art of being part beast and part human, the gift of assuming various skins to do your bidding."

Sable shrank upon hearing such knowledge, her pencil madly scribbling to keep up "So… a shape shifter?"

"And lucky for you I was a master of therianthropism. However in order for Gomess to use it we have to claim the soul of the beast we wish to become. So we had to learn how to harvest souls and bind them to ourselves." She laughed a little "I took it even further, my greatest achievement was binding pieces of the soul of a fierce deity to two masks… alas, they're lost in the Stone Towers." Caught up in bragging over her achievement, she did not notice that Sable was madly writing in her notebook of this discovery "One to represent its raw strength, the other to contain it's magic. The original plan was to use them to slay the Golden Goddesses when we finally breeched the heavens. Then the incident with Majora happened and we were all obliterated in a night."

Not turning from her notes, Sable prompted "Then how did you get out?"

"I knew what my brethren were planning, but I also knew that Termina would be willing to tolerate us, they were not as idealistic or bigoted as the Ikana. So I led half of my clan to freedom, its why this land still reveres the Giants." Midna's face frowned as she turned to the teenager and snapped "Hey! Since when was this an interview!? I came here to get something from you!"

Sable was startled from her work "Ok, what is it?"

"I want you to carry on our magic and learn the ways of therianthropism… which also means you need to learn how to reap souls as well. You're a studious child, you should love this challenge."

"It's all a bit overwhelming," Sable sighed and muttered to herself "I don't think I'd be able to survive the trip across Termina, let alone fight monsters."

"And if you do so you'll receive a very good reward, not only do you win the freedom to travel anywhere in Termina in ease," Midna smiled wickedly "But what if I told you, you could take the form of a dragon. Not just a typical dodongo either, I mean, a real flying dragon," She tittered to herself "You'll probably say, those kinds of dragons are extinct or only exist in stories. Well, in my era they were alive and well, until they were hunted down by the Gorons." A finger pointed at Sable's pendant "Luckily, I was able to bind the soul of the dragon matriarch, Argorok, here. A fair deal if you ask me, a way to preserve her for all time while letting my bloodline assume her form."

Sable rolled her eyes "That's all well and good but where am I supposed to learn this magic? There's not really an abundance of magic users around."

"In Clock Town maybe, so head to the Southern Swamp and speak with my old friends. Koume and Kotake, tell them Midna sent you. They'll know the rest."

"And what if I don't?"

Midna was taken aback, then menacingly leant down to her level "Otherwise I will haunt you every step of your life, your sleep will be tainted by nightmares and you will see the damned in your waking hours." She growled in a demonic voice "I did not forsake Zant just to watch you throw it all away. That is why I always speak to my descendants when they first wear my necklace." Midna brushed a braid of her shoulder "There's only really one path for you to take."

Sable watched helplessly as her only link to a lost era vanished into the night once more. Her pendant, no, her fused shadow temporarily lost its levitating ability in Midna's absence. Overwhelmed by what had just happened, Sable remained frozen to that spot on the observatory deck all night.