Usually I harbored quite a lot of confidence in my shooting ability. This, predictably, led to cockiness, and, subsequently, to my current predicament. Midna was not impressed in the least.
"Don't you ever look at where you're aiming?" she spat at me. "If you're not careful you'll end up skewered like that Bullbo over there."
"Actually no," I ground out, "I just liked to pull the string and see where they land."
I balanced the bow carefully and fired two arrows at once, taking out two more trolls. If the goddesses-damned things didn't howl like that when they were hit, it would make my life so much easier. But apparently nothing in this world liked the idea of an easy life for me, all thanks to my stupid name. Midna nudged my shoulder insistently, shoving something black and shiny at my face that only succeeded in making me break out into a cold sweat.
"Transform, you idiot! You've got their attention now, so just make a dash for it- It's not like you don't know where the entrance is-"
"What the hell are you talking about?" I hissed at her. Three trolls fell this time; thankfully one of them kept his mouth decidedly shut, though it was more of a courtesy now than anything else. At this point in the assault, more noise would just be drops in the proverbial bucket of trouble. Shaking my head, I twisted out of her grasp. "Don't tell me you've gone crazy right when I need you." I rushed around another bend in the complex, quickly assessing the scene as I rounded the protruding wall. They'd cornered me in a dark alley. How appropriate. Hurriedly I ducked into a doorway, looking around desperately for the archway that was supposed to mark the entrance to the Grounds.
From a distance, the place looked like a giant sandstone fortress, preceded by a makeshift camp of rotting wood and torn canvas. I quickly found out that the deserted appearance was a complete lie. However, before initiating the attack, I did get to examine the high turrets that rose above what looked like an arena, arranged in a wide circle. I had little doubt that that was where I needed to go – why else make such a grand space if it wasn't the focus of the place? The Arbiter's Grounds was a temple, after all. Or at least, it functioned as a temple, since it contained priceless artifacts and a culturally significant center for worship. When I'd used the Hawkeye, I was able to pick out the head of a giant woman. I wouldn't be surprised if I found incense burners and cremation urns inside, or an altar. I didn't really care what I found inside so long as I could make it there.
Back in the present, I couldn't yet see the archway; instead, I found heaps of wood blocking what looked like a wide thoroughfare. And what better way to celebrate my arrival than by crashing through cords of dried wood with a big, smelly pig? I wheeled around and skidded into a tiny stable, guiding a Bullbo down the main aisle to the doorway. I'd stolen several of these since launching the attack on the bandits, though quite honestly I didn't think I'd ever get used to riding one of them, mostly because of the stench. The rough, hairy hide reeked something terrible, like manure left to bake in the sun, and then used to burn a partly decomposed corpse. Oh, and sand. It smelled like sand. While I was busy holding my breath, Midna snapped something mean and critical at me, but by this time, anything that she said glanced right off my intense level of concentration.
Brilliant. All you've got to do is smash into some wood and you're home free. Just hope the trolls aren't stupid enough to follow you inside. That made it sound so effing easy. With an apprehensive glance I surveyed the narrow path, my boots poised to dig deep into the sides of my mount. And in a split second, something had torn me out of the saddle and sent me flying into the side of the barn.
"GET UP!" Someone shrieked at me. Through the haze that clouded my mind I barely made out a hulking shape and its steady approach. Okay. So this is good. More clobbering. I scrambled unsteadily onto my knees and groped around for the sword hilt; my fingers had just closed over the slippery metal when something hard and sharp connected with my side.
"LINK!"
"Leave me alone," I groaned piteously. Something was towering over me, something that looked suspiciously like a mutant troll... What had she called them? Goddesses, I couldn't think. It swung a heavy axe at my head and, screaming, "Damn it!" I rolled out of the way, a hand pressing against something numb and bloody. Midna sparkled strangely in the dark, trying to draw the troll's attention as I fumbled with the sword. The world kept shifting annoyingly beneath my curiously heavy feet, and my lunge ended up being several feet too far to the left.
"Get up, Link! Link!"
Farore, Nayru, and Din, but why the hell was it so goddesses-damned dark? The troll turned toward me, its bright eyes shining in the eerie gloom of the stable. I spread my feet into a more balanced stance and checked for any openings in the troll's defense: One, he was effing HUGE, so he would have difficulty reacting to an attack from behind; Two, he was effing stupid, so a projectile would provide a decent distraction; Three, if I didn't move now, I'd lose consciousness before we ever made it to the goddesses-damned temple. What the hell. Where is that break I requested? What are we even going to do inside the temple? Can I take a nap?
Rolling clumsily behind the troll, I brought up my sword and jammed it into the base of his skull where the armor gave way to bare skin. He grunted beneath me, and I hung there awkwardly, hoping my hands wouldn't slip. How the blade didn't puncture his spine was beyond me, but the problems it caused were starting to rear their ugly heads – one of them being that of the troll. He kept staggering around in circles trying to find me, the wicked little thing causing him a load of pain. It's mutual, buddy; trust me. I certainly couldn't un-wedge the sword from my current position, so I scrambled up onto the blade, balanced there, and drew my bow.
This is either the most brilliant thing you've ever thought of, or the absolute stupidest. And I'm fairly certain it's the latter. With the arrow nocked and held in place with one hand, my feet braced against the giant's back and placed cumbersomely on the flat of the blade, I managed to peel off the troll's helmet with my free hand. Midna screamed something at me, the world tilted crazily, and I loosed the arrow at the troll's unprotected skull, right into his ear.
Then he shrieked bloody murder and spun around even faster. I felt heavy and unusually tired and completely irritated by this idiot troll; my hands gripped the sword and yanked it out bit by gory bit, my ears completely deaf to his awful cries by now. He suddenly toppled into something, and distantly I could hear the pig squealing in terror, before the troll slipped heavily to the ground. Gravity and momentum from the fall knocked me off balance and I slammed into the sword's hilt, accidentally driving it deeper into the troll's nape; several things crunched unpleasantly, but the pain was so thickly layered in my head that I couldn't tell if I was the one with broken anything. It wasn't until I tried to move my hands and dislodge the sword did I realize what had happened with a jolt of pain.
As if on cue, Midna flashed into sight by my shoulder, her hands working against the blood dripping from a jagged slash. "Oh, Link. We need to get you inside."
No shit, Midna. "Sure," I said through gritted teeth. "Sure, Midna, that's an effing lovely idea, except for that fact that my sword is jammed into this thing's skull, and my hands are trapped on the wrong side of the hand guard."
All she managed was a tiny 'oh' of surprise. Oh. Of all the things she could've said – a solution, consolation, anything – the only thing she could effing manage was, oh? What the bloody hell, I wanted to scream in frustration and mounting agony. Will you freaking do something before I topple over and bleed out? Her ponytail whipped out then and cocooned my hands, gently lending me the strength I'd never had. After several long moments she'd managed to free both the weapon and my extremities, and with my crippled hands cradled against my heaving chest, I staggered away dizzily, completely ignoring the sword that clattered noisily to the ground.
"Link, we have to get inside."
"Midna, I think my hand's broken."
She stared uncertainly at me; I knew my face had to be shining in the grey light, shining with the pallor that had set in from blood loss. "There might be a fairy somewhere near the entrance," she said quietly, gingerly poking me to my feet again and sheathing the sword for me. I felt her straighten the bow that was slung over my shoulder. "At least you didn't break both."
I glared at her through unfocused eyes. "You're damn lucky I'm ambidextrous," I told her, an empty threat lacing the words. She looked at me strangely, but I ignored her. My right hand hung crumpled and bent at an awkward angle; it hurt to even look at it, and that was saying something: I could barely register any sensations due to the immense pain in my head and side.
The Bullbo stood shivering near the entrance to the barn, and despite its excessive movement I managed to pull myself into the saddle once again. Turning it towards the blocked alley, I spurred the animal without thinking of grasping the saddle, and consequently groaned spectacularly when it threw me clear of the saddle. Not that it really mattered whether or not I rode it, since it kept going, kept smashing through the wood and creating a narrow path. Behind us, screeches echoed as the trolls discovered their dying leader.
I watched dazedly as the entrance loomed closer and closer. My feet weighed heavily with each step – so heavily that Midna began supporting my weight, almost dragging me along when my head started to loll. The stone façade of the enormous building was made of golden sandstone that took on a warm glow in the firelight, but nothing could make it look more welcoming than the thick clumps of grass near the entrance. Midna floated ahead and incinerated several with blasts from her palm; the fairy noticed me immediately and darted in my direction. She managed to heal the cut in my side and fix most of my hand before her magic could do no more, and we were left to skulk around in the courtyard, hunting around for anything else of use. I ended up with a total of three fairies, in varying conditions, after smashing open all the random jars and cutting roughly into the near-dead grass.
"Well, that was interesting," I muttered, warily eying the entrance to the Grounds. Midna had taken to hovering around my head, her movements erratic and forceful.
"Chatty, aren't you?" was all she said, and it sounded like an accusation. I turned to stare at her, but she threw up her hands, ushering me into the temple. "You're wasting time-"
I headed inside, sword drawn again, feeling decidedly better than moments ago. Probably because you aren't bleeding all over the goddesses-damned place anymore. That'd be a good reason. Yes. Absolutely. Just dandy. Because once I got to the end of the short stone passageway, the swirling sandpit of doom sure did an awesome job of reversing the feeling. For being such a small, simple room, there were a lot of things I disliked about it. It extended about fifty meters into sooty gloom, lit only by a few rusted, spluttering, magical braziers on the wall to my left, with a large square door set into the wall directly ahead of me. Most of the floor had eroded into what I guessed unhappily to be quicksand, and to top it off, there were little sandworms leaping in and out of the shifting floor, both of them eying me evilly. If I squinted and tilted my head a bit, it looked like there were a couple skeletons grinning at me from the other side of the room, too. "Well aren't I lucky. There're even cherries to top it off this time." I turned to Midna meaningfully, annoyed, palm out, my thoughts turning back to the essential question: why the hell aren't you home herding goats? "Clawshot, if you don't mind." Her eye had that look again, but she handed me the weapon regardless.
I shot them both, and each time I winced a little when the metal anchor made contact with flesh. A month ago, I would've never dreamt of doing this. A month ago I was helping Renado whittle his own toy sword out of a tree branch that had fallen near the house. Now, I was using a real sword and killing things. Killing them. The worst part was that I didn't exactly feel all that badly afterwards. I didn't feel shaky and lost and utterly violated anymore when these magical monsters withered and exploded. I didn't even feel nauseous when I remembered the bandits crumpling, suddenly and eternally still on the packed sand of their there was satisfaction and relief, and the two combined terrified me; I didn't want to be this... this mindless killer – not even if it came with the territory of being a candidate for 'hero,' which had, in recent moments, begun to pique my interest. I knew I wanted to believe that I didn't want that for myself, since just the thought of Link, wherever he was, awaiting rescue from someone like me, and Midna… Well, that was enough to keep my thoughts far from the idea. I just wanted this adventure to end.
The Moldorms were a breeze to take care of after the blundering Bulbin in the stable. I very happily watched the bodies sink into the sandpit before squinting into the gloom for a way across. At one time, this must have been the grand entrance. However, what little remained of the broken tiles made continuing to the door on the other side virtually impossible. Since I had the clawshot, I simply aimed for the first thing that caught my eye as a potential target: a long burnt-out netted sconce set into the wall to my left, between the two that were miraculously still burning. With clammy hands clenched I jumped my way across the remaining tile islands until I reached an uncomfortably wide stretch of lethal sand.
"I told you not to spend this much time away," Midna said suddenly. I glanced at her disinterestedly, deciding to roll over the sand and hope it dispersed enough of my weight, and that I moved fast enough, to avoid getting sucked under. After surviving two ambushes, I didn't really feel like drowning in sand, of all things. Too many things had tried to kill me in the past week for me to give up now. It seemed like the door used to be barred by a pair of rusted gates now withdrawn into the wall, which probably should have thrown up a red flag in my head. Instead, I set my jaw, and managed to awkwardly raise the door to advance into the next room and whatever unfathomable treasures it held.
"I told you to come back, didn't I?" She floated right in front of me, trying to prevent me from crossing what seemed to be a lobby with two antechambers on either side, with another door directly in front of me. One of the little side rooms conveniently had a vat of oil. When I made for the next door, Midna started violently shaking her head, muttering, "No, no, no!" but I opened it regardless, though her preventative efforts were growing more intense. She kept bumping into me, trying to put a hand to my forehead or waving her fingers in front of my face. Her antics were completely unnecessary and potentially dangerous if she kept this up. I didn't know how to respond, but ignoring them could get me killed.
The next room was completely dark. Holding out a hand, I prompted her to relinquish a light source of some kind, namely the new lantern I'd nicked from the bandits' camp, since we'd broken the other one in the tunnels.. She compiled and thrust it at me, although from the force behind her movement I could tell she was fuming over something. I had a small bottle of oil in my pocket from a room in the lobby. "Can you quit it with the attitude? I'm trying to help-"
""Shut. Up," Midna snarled.
"Okay, okay. Farore." Glancing at her shining eye, I lit the lantern and emptied the last of the oil into the tiny compartment before stowing the bottle in my belt. If she hadn't stolen my pack from me, I would've put it in there, in a safer pocket. But Midna enjoyed being a tyrant, so I dutifully kept my mouth shut, readying my sword and shield as chattering noises carried through the stale air. I couldn't see that far ahead, so I raised the lantern a little higher; several tiles were missing from the floor, swirling sand filling the spaces instead, just like in the first room. From the disconcerting feeling flooding my stomach, I inferred that the room was much larger than my meagre light could show. Carefully I picked my way across the sand until the chattering gave way to pinpricks of light scattered around me, moving around in eerily shining pairs.
By the time I'd approached a pair of unlit braziers that stood on either side of a caged door, a squadron of dwarf skeletons emerged from the gloom with their spears raised threateningly. I slashed through them quickly, twisting a little so they wouldn't skewer me on their weapons. The room was so damn dark I could barely see anything but the oncoming wave – and sure, they died easily enough, but then four more sprang up out of nowhere. ""Great Din," I swore loudly, lunging for the brazier. I'd been sandwiched in between the two by the advancing hordes, and now I was struggling to light both the settings before I got jabbed to death by toy spears. The only 'toy' quality about them is their size.
The second brazier finally caught, the bars rattled back into the ceiling, and I kicked and slashed until I had a clear chance to wrench open the door before more of those little things came back. Why the hell the door reacted to the lights was beyond me, but when it finally rumbled open, I dove through it and slammed it down shut. A slight crunching sound on the other side brought a satisfied smirk to my face. Goddesses-damned skeletons.
Midna giggled. I spun around, irritated. "You find that effing funny?" Inwardly I dared her to reply; she merely suppressed another laugh.
This room was a little brighter than the last, probably thanks to some missing bricks in the ceiling and invading moonlight. At the far end stood an open gate made of gold and bronze and preceded by a short, wide staircase. I honestly considered striding bravely onto the silver-tinted stairs, but something held me back, lingering on the broken flagstones, as the sand had eaten away most of the floor in this room, too. That same closed-off feeling I had earlier in the desert returned in full force, and I backed away from the steps – but rather than clearing space to think, Midna took it as an invitation to dart even closer, her face nearly pressed against mine.
"Something isn't right-" I stared, alarmed, as she abruptly curled in on herself in midair, clutching her head. "It's all wrong here- What's wrong with you?" raved the imp, her body unfurling, suddenly rigid, and her voice bordering on hysterical with every word. "Why are you looking at me like that? What's wrong with you?"
Well this is just brilliant. She was going crazy and thought that I was the problem. Typical. "Midna," I sighed wearily, pushing past her towards the stairs. She'd get over it eventually. "I'm not who you think I am. If you think hard enough about it, you'll realize just who I am again, and we can go along on our merry way, complete with nasty little-"
Staggering sideways from the force of her blow, I scowled, clutching my face in one hand, and the sword tighter in the other. "What the hell was that for? You can't just go around punching me, especially when you want my- ugh!" Something heavy knocked me askew, and I was sent skittering over the grit-covered sandstone once again. The sword slipped out of my grasp and skidded to a halt in what looked like quicksand. I swore loudly and lunged for it, trying my best to keep my balance despite a once-again unsteady world, but Midna must have taken the movement as a threat, because she dove for the weapon and brandished it at me. Gripped with a steadily-increasing rate of fear, I scrambled backwards on all fours like a crab, my eyes fixed on the tip of the blade that kept edging closer and closer to my chest.
"How dare you!"
Midna's voice had assumed the same deadly quality I'd noticed back in the woods, during our first encounter: quiet, the threat lurking and waiting for the right moment to strike. Her grip changed subtly on the hilt and I made to dodge, to flip out of the way – but with the same intensity as a lightning bolt, I felt her drive the blade home into my left shoulder, pinning me against the flagstones. This arrangement apparently dissatisfied her, though for the life of me I couldn't see why. I was freaking pinned to the freaking floor by a freaking sword. I wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. But regardless, she grasped me in her ponytail, wrenching me from the floor, and, in the split second she held me to her face, I saw just how wild her eye was, and struggled madly to get free. "I will destroy you, Zant!" she hissed at me. And then she threw me forcefully across the room, my head connected with the wall with a sharp crack, a brilliant golden light filled the room, and she crept closer, crying again. Something burned in my shoulder.
"Oh goddesses, what-? Link- Oh, Link, no, please. No- come back to me…."
Sure, come back to you. Is there another wall you'd like to introduce me to? Or maybe you'd like to practice extreme acupuncture?
Everything had gone fuzzy and distant, just as it had when she'd pulled me underwater back at Hylia. I felt her hand sweeping over my face, tracing the bones, and dabbing her fingers in the warm blood. Her absence didn't register until I called out feebly, and received nothing in response.