Chapter Six: Inconvenience

The three girls were silent. Aura was staring at the floor, a mixture of sorrow, denial, and anger in her eyes. Midna was kneeling on the ground, holding her arms around herself and trying not to cry. Zelda stood motionless, her hand to her side and her eyes to the ceiling.

Just then, a guard entered the hall. "Your highness, I understand that you do not wish to be disturbed whilst in meetings of utter importance, but I do believe it is getting late. Maybe you should get some sleep? And your visitors as well, since I'm sure they must have traveled very far."

Zelda snapped her concentration to the guard in the doorway. "Thank you for informing me, sir," she said matter-of-factly. "I did not realize how late it was getting. You are dismissed."

The guard quickly scurried back out the door, closing it softly behind him.

Zelda turned to face Aura and Midna. "Well, why don't the two of you get to sleep? I'm going to head for my chambers, and you should do the same. We'll settle things in the morning."

Midna sighed and stood up, then walked over to Zelda and put her hand on her shoulder, stopping her in her tracks. "You knew? About my feelings for Link?"

Zelda put her hand on top of Midna's. "Yes."

"And you still let me destroy the mirror?"

"By the time I realized what it was you were doing, I could not do anything to stop you. And you know as well as I that the mirror held within it an incredible evil force. As Aura had made clear, our duty to our people comes first and foremost. Not the duty to our hearts."

Aura got up and walked over to the two princesses. "Come on. Let's get to sleep."

"You're right, come on," agreed Midna.

"We need to wake up early and drag Link away from that stupid human girl before they get up tomorrow morning," added Aura with a devilish grin. This caused Midna and Zelda to smile and let out a brief chuckle.

"Well, good night my friends," said Zelda as she embraced the two others girls. "We shall see each other tomorrow morn.

And so they all set off for their chambers and quickly drifted off to sleep…

In the morning, Aura was the first to awaken. "I'll let the others sleep a little while longer…I need some more time to plot," she yawned to herself, thinking of a reasonable way to separate her future father and his growing love interest.

Midna lay awake in her bed as well, staring longingly at the ceiling. "I was so stupid…why couldn't I have just told him the contents of my heart before I shattered the mirror? Then we wouldn't be having this stupid problem in the first place. I should have waited just a little while longer to break the mirror…Just a few moments, a day at the most…that's all it would have taken…"

Aura burst into Midna's room (which was probably entirely unnecessary because she could have just slipped under the door by traveling through the shadows). "Come on, let's go. Before the human wakes up. Link may be one heckuva late sleeper, but I doubt that she is the same."

Midna quickly hopped out of bed and made her way out the door, closely following behind Aura. They walked around a corner and traveled down a few flights of stairs, and met up with Princess Zelda.

"Good morning, girls. Are we ready to do this?" she asked as she stuck out her hand to start a "group hand-pile".

"Ready as ever," said Midna, placing her hand on top of Zelda's.

"Let's do this," finished Aura, slapping her hand down on top of the other two, pushing them down, and then raised her hand into the air.

Zelda turned and headed towards Ilia's and Link's room. Aura and Midna followed closely behind. When they finally got there, she asked, "What's the plan, Aura?"

"It's quite simple, really. Midna will go in as a shadow and check out what we have to work with. Then, depending on what actually happened last night, we'll make our move and get Link out of there. Worst case scenario, they slept together, and we'll have to get him out of bed without Ilia noticing. If that happens, we're going to have to hit her in the head with something pretty heavy…"

Zelda interrupted. "I'll have no senseless violence occurring in my palace, especially if you expect me to be a part of it."

"Alright, alright, fine. We'll just leave him alone if he's in bed." Aura tried not to wince as she counteracted her own plan. "Well, if he's not in bed, we'll just grab him and go. Simple as that."

The trio nodded, and Midna sank into the shadows. She slipped herself under the door and materialized…in utter shock at what she was seeing…or rather, what she wasn't seeing… "I think we're going to have a bit of a problem…"