Midna

My first instinct, strangely, was to be angry. Where was he captured? When was he captured? How was he captured? A thousand unanswered questions in this news that made my head ache with calculations. How could we find him?

"He could have been anywhere in Hyrule when he was captured." I seethed, crossing my arms as I paced back and forth across the same wooden room.

"Midna, we don't know that he was captured by anybody." Zelda said, but I wasn't listening.

"That fool!" I snapped at nobody in particular, slamming my hand down on the wooden table in the corner. "How could he let himself get captured? Why didn't he take anybody with him? Didn't he have a sword on him?—he should have been fine with a sword!"

"Um, actually," Ilia piped up from the corner of the room. I turned to her, my eyes burning as she spoke. "Actually, Link left his sword here. Rusl wanted to borrow it."

"For what?" I growled. She swallowed.

"He left on a journey to Kakariko Village yesterday, shortly before you… appeared. Link gave it to him because Rusl is having more trouble when fighting now. Even when he practices with a sword, it's harder for him to move quickly. Everyone was worried about him, and anybody who had anything that would help gave it." I grinded my teeth together, beginning to pace again. It was only a moment of silence before Ilia spoke again.

"Um, Lady Midna?" My eyes shifted back to her suspiciously. "May I just say that perhaps they threatened someone or something he cares about?"

"Why do you think that?" I asked. She looked at the ground instead of at me when she answered.

"Well, it's just that I don't think Link would have let himself be taken by force in that situation. You see, he was… he was very worried about you when he left yesterday, and he seemed very determined to help you. I just don't think that he would let anyone take him if it meant that you couldn't have the medicine you needed."

For whatever reason, this surprised me, and a warm blush spread over my cheeks. I quickly banished the fuzzy sensation and sighed with fake irritation. "Either way, we have to go find him. With Link being who he is, they could threaten a puppy and he'd be ready to sacrifice himself."

"Link will be fine for a little while." Zelda said soothingly. "Right now, we have to worry about you, Midna."

"Me?" I asked, my tone slightly annoyed. "Why me?" She sighed.

"You're medicine is only temporary, remember? If we're going to go look for Link then I have to travel to Snow Peak first to get the original potion. That will keep you… real, in a manner of speaking, for about a week." I bit my lip, concentrating.

"Okay then, I'll warp you there now." I stood from my chair, but Zelda just stared at me. "What is it?" I asked, confused. Zelda frowned.

"Midna, the portals in the different areas of Hyrule disappeared shortly after you broke the mirror. The only way to travel is to walk, once again." I gawked at her in disbelief. There were no portals left?

"Besides," She continued. "You still don't have enough energy to warp, yet alone walk across Hyrule. You will stay here, Midna. Two halves of your body are fighting each other right now. The half that is trying to heal your wounds and the half that is trying to expand your wounds with the help of the light that is in this realm. Until I bring you the potion, neither of the halves is going to gain any lee-way. And while that means that you can't get weaker, it also means that you can't get any healthier. When I bring you the potion, the half trying to heal you will get stronger, and we can set out to search for Link. Please, just wait for me, okay?"

I stared at her for a long moment. Why was I always doing this? I was always getting in the way of things. Link wouldn't have even been out of this village if I hadn't… Hadn't what? Now that I thought about it, I actually didn't think I did anything wrong. It wasn't my choice to have those strange monsters attack my castle and it wasn't my choice to almost die and it wasn't my choice to open the portal. So what had I done wrong?

'Oh please, Midna, don't let this one piece of luck screw with your head.' The irritable voice in my mind said. 'An easier question would be what you haven't done wrong.' That was completely true. I sighed. "Fine, but we're leaving the moment that potion passes my lips!" I snarled, speaking through clenched teeth.

"Of course," Zelda said, bowing her head slightly.

The next morning, Zelda left. She left on the white horse she had come here on, she had waved goodbye, and then she had trotted away from me, into the Faron Woods. The moment she disappeared into the trees I felt alone. The moment that the wind whistled and blew my hair across my cheek I felt alone. Alone again. It was funny that it was only now that I noticed how much I had missed Princess Zelda while I was in the Twilight.

Her wisdom exceeded mine in many levels and she was almost like my best friend. Of course, there was Link, but strangely, "best friend" didn't seem to be the right title for him. There was a different title I imagined, but I couldn't quite figure out what it was. I thought about it as I turned around and walked slowly back into the small cottage house.

I lay down on the couch and stared up at the ceiling for a long time. A long time that was an hour, two hours, three hours. Finally, after several hours (I hadn't been counting how many), I stood up from the sofa and walked outside. It was dark out, and that didn't make me like nighttime very much, but the cool breeze that swept around me made up for the lost light. I walked down the path from Link's house into the village. Did any of these people know that I was here yet?

I took in the flowing river and the small, cozy, quiet houses nestled into hillsides and growing trees. I walked to the bridge that arched over the water and I sat down in the middle. Letting my feet dangle in the water, I looked all around me. I had never really appreciated the beauty of Link's little village: Ordon. It had seemed rather muddy and regular when I first came here with him, but it had a kind of happy warmth about it that I didn't think the town around the royal palace ever held. At least, not for me.

I stared up at the stars, pointing out shapes and patterns in them. Link used to do that all the time when we would rest for the night. I now thought that I had been foolish not to have taken advantage of the wide, wondrous sky that swallowed Hyrule Field at night. Instead I had clasped my fingers behind my head, leaned against our tree (our shabby shelter) and said, "That seems like a pretty stupid hobby." with my usual arrogant tone.

He had merely looked at me, his warm blue eyes curious rather than offended, as though asking me to give an explanation. I had sighed irritably.

"It's not like the stars were actually assembled in different shapes for your amusement by the goddesses. You could imagine thousands of different shapes in the jumble of lights up there, but imagination doesn't get you anywhere in this realm, does it? Only hard work and a hard back bone does that." He had frowned and then leaned back into the trunk of the tree as well, on the other side. I closed my eyes, and neither of us spoke as I fell into a deep slumber.

Now, as I stared up at the stars from this bridge in his village, I wondered for the first time what he had thought of that particular rant on the stars. I wondered if he went to sleep right after I said that, or if he had continued to gaze at the night sky. I wondered if he had been thinking that I was wrong or if he had been thinking that I was right. I suddenly felt a jolt of pain and guilt at that thought. It was too late to feel guilty for saying that now, but it was hard repressing it with the thought that he had believed those words. Because those were the words of a fool.

Sighing, my eyes instead shifted to the horizon. Light was already touching the sky—just barely, but enough that I was somewhat worried about the arrival of one of the villagers. Who knew what time they woke up. As I climbed to my feet, I even thought that I had been here too long. It was a bit lighter than it seemed on first look. I turned to scurry back across the bridge, and I thought I might fall off of it in surprise at what I saw, but instead, I just stared, my eyes wide and frightened.

The child's face that I stared at was assembled much the same. And for a long moment, we just gawked at each other, each of us seemingly too frightened to move. Hesitantly, his eyes left mine and traveled to the cyon colored markings on my arms and legs. I looked there too, and the evidence of our differences was thrown in my face once again. I wasn't a light dweller.

My strange cyon glyphs were proof that I was only a creature of the Twilight. The child's sudden cry for help was proof that I was only a creature of the Twilight. The way he tripped over his feet as he tried to run away from me with all his speed was proof that I was only a creature of the Twilight—not a light dweller. "It—It's a MONSTER!" He yelled, scrambling back to the door of his home. I didn't have time to escape as men and women and children started to step out of their doors to see what the commotion was about and see me. Every single pair of eyes in that village saw me. And for the first time, excluding the experience with the creatures that attacked my castle, I was completely and totally afraid.