Chapter Ten: It's All Over

Aura was still screaming when she opened her eyes to darkness. It was cold, wherever she was, and she could see nothing except for her own body. This was considerably strange, especially since she could see it quite clearly, as if she was standing in the light. It was very quiet where she was. If you had dropped a pin, and if there was even a ground-like substance in this place, you could have definitely heard it. Aura decided it would be best if she stopped making so much noise.

She stopped screaming and reached down to her neck to feel if the pendant was still there. But she felt nothing. When her hand moved towards her skin, it went right through. She was nothing more than air!

She perked up in shock, her hands twitching uncontrollably. "Midna?" she cried out into the nothingness. "Princess Zelda? Anyone?!?" she began to panic, until she heard a familiar voice.

"There's another one here? I thought that I was all alone," the man said. "I heard a noise, and I ran to it as fast as I could. I didn't expect another person to be here."

Aura turned around and saw none other than a handsome, blonde haired, blue eyed man in an old green tunic, with a look of relief on his face so great, it drowned out all of Aura's fears…but in place of her panic, curiosity strongly took hold.

"Father?"

zzz

She had done it. Ilia had finally found him. Link was laying face-first on the ground, sprawled out in what looked to be a very uncomfortable position. In fact, it looked like he wouldn't even be able to breathe while he was lying like that. She rushed over to him and immediately moved his body so that his face was no longer buried in the sand. She wrapped her arms around his body and dragged him up on her lap.

Ilia held Link's bloody, motionless frame in her arms. She shook him, gently at first. "Hey…Link, wake up." And then she shook him with more force. "Come on, say something…" She put a hand to his face and jumped…it was so…

"Link, damn you, wake up! Wake up!" She brushed a stray lock of his hair from his face, and looked at his pale coloration. He was so…cold.

Ilia's tears began to fall on Link's face. "You can't leave me! Please, wake up! You're supposed to be a hero! How could you be dead?" She started to slap his face in a futile attempt to awaken him. "Come on! Just open your eyes! Twitch your fingers!"

She began to trace her fingers up and down his neck in an attempt to find a pulse…if only a faint one. "Anything! Give me a sign, please! You have to be alive!"

But there was none. No blood was pulsing through his dead, dried-up veins. He was gone. There was nothing that Ilia could do to bring him back.

New tears began to fill Ilia's eyes. She clung to Link's dead body even tighter. "You can't leave me yet! How am I supposed to get home without you?" She started pounding the sand with her fists. "What am I supposed to tell everyone back home?" She began to cry even harder and hold onto him with her other arm even tighter than before. "I never even got to tell you…I never got to tell you how I felt!" She cried into his chest, getting her cheeks splattered with his blood. "Link…I love you! Wake up, I love you, I love you!"

But he did not wake up. No matter how much she screamed out his name or confessed her love, he did not even so much as stir. And Ilia did not stop crying. Fire crackled all around behind them and in the distance, but it did not dare enter where they were. It was as if somewhere, someone higher up was giving them one last reprieve. The wind kept blowing, the sun continued to rise higher into the sky as morning died away, and life elsewhere kept on moving in the same way…or so it seemed…

Link had fallen, and somewhere very close, his fall had brought about the rise of someone else. And this time, Link would not be there to stop him. Was this it? Was this the end?

zzz

"I see that now you're willing to lend us an ear," said the guard, waving the letter playfully in front of Telma's face.

Telma scowled at the guard. "Two ears, if you please. Now stop that, it's terribly distracting!" She reached out an arm and tore the note from the guard's hand, and let out a brief chuckle.

The guard made an angry face at Telma, but the frown was quickly replaced with an insincere smile. "I'd be happy to share with you my information on the whereabouts of the princess as long as you are willing to share your information on the whereabouts of Mr. Shad," he said as he snatched the letter back from the woman.

"Why you no good…I told you already! I don't know where he is! He just took off, didn't say a word! He didn't leave a note or anything! He just took off!" Her voice was filled with anger and desperation.

The guard shook his head playfully. "Tsk tsk tsk…" he said, waving a finger back and forth as if he was scolding a small child. "I guess I can't tell you my half of the story. We'll be taking our leave now." He motioned for the other guards to start heading out.

"Bastards," Telma mumbled under her breath.

The guard turned and faced her. "What was that?"

"Nothing," replied Telma as she turned her head away.

"That's what I thought. Come on, men." And with that, they turned to exit the bar…when the door suddenly swung open.

"I'm back!" the man said, cheerfully, his arms full of scrolls, books, and quill pens. Then he opened his eyes and saw the guards. He looked towards Telma. "Miss Telma? What's going on? There's not trouble again, is there?"

Telma's ears perked up at the sound of the man's voice. She looked over at the man. "Shad…Shad, it's you! It's really you!"

"Well of course it's me, who else could I be?" he replied, still as clueless as ever. He pushed his glasses up on his face with his one free hand as he repositioned the scholarly materials on his hip.

"You're back!" Then she put on a devilish grin and began to address the guards. "You'd better be staying for a while. And explain until everything is clear."

The guard weakly smiled, flinching at the new tone in the woman's voice. Shad had a look of utter confusion on his face. This was very unusual for him, as he was usually the bright, witty one of the bunch.

"Why don't the sorry lot of you make yourselves comfortable? You won't be getting out of her for quite some time."

zzz

Deep, cold-hearted laughter could be heard echoing throughout the entire structure of the Arbiter's Grounds. Laughter that was so familiar it was frightening. Midna and Zelda were frozen in place as they listened fearfully to the laughter of the one man who they now knew was behind it all…

"How did he come back?" asked Midna in a half-whisper, her voice slightly quavering.

"I don't know. Never in the history of Hyrule has he come back for more in the same generation before…this is very unexpected…" replied Zelda.

"Do you think he was behind Aura's disappearance?"

"I don't know."

"What do we do now?"

"We have to get out of here…and I mean now."

"But what about Aura?"

"She's gone!"

"But what if she's…?"

"Midna, it hurts me just as much as it hurts you that she has vanished…but no matter how hard we search for her here, we will not find her. What matters most is that we find a way out of here before Ganondorf finds us."

Footsteps began to echo out behind them. Louder and louder they became as the Desert man approached.

Midna tensed her entire body, sensing his presence before he even got to them. Then the laughter started up again.

Ganondorf's malicious voice began to boom throughout the area. "It looks like I've found you, my little renegade princess! And it seems like your shadow is here too! What an unexpected turn of events. I thought I had killed that brat before. It matters not. She'll just have to die by my hands for a second time!"

The two princesses looked up at Ganondorf, their eyes full of fear.

Ganondorf looked around and began to laugh again. "Too bad for you, your little hero isn't here to rescue you this time!" Then, although it was obvious that he clearly knew something about it that the two girls did not, he sarcastically added, "I wonder what could have happened to him?"

It seemed like this was it. This was the end.