It's-a me, I am back and whole!

The trip was good for me, because I'm an architecture student and I got to meet some historical cities and see their architecture live, but I there were SO MANY ladders. There was one in which we needed to stop because I couldn't breathe, walk and eat at the same time lmao (I was having ice cream, yeah)

And you know that here Zelda is allergic to milk and all, so imagine how I'm feeling now that my stomach is sensitive for some reason and I get sick whenever I eat cheese. It's all thanks to the sundried tomatoes I had last week, which I love btw, especially in pizzas, but why did I eat pizza again this weekend jfc I regret that, I regret that so much

Anyway, here's the new chap! And know that I wrote a new thing for Tales of Twilight. And I had another idea this afternoon. Three stories to be planned and written, I can't keep up

Enjoy!

You're so talented, you play that violin and rock it

[edited 2018.03.12]

Eclipse Magnitude

Eclipse magnitude is the fraction of the Sun's diameter occulted by the Moon. It is strictly a ratio of diameters and should not be confused with eclipse obscuration, which is a measure of the Sun's surface area occulted by the Moon. Eclipse magnitude may be expressed as either a percentage or a decimal fraction (e.g., 50% or 0.50). By convention, its value is given at the instant of greatest eclipse.

Zelda had her arms wrapped around her form as she walked through the darkened halls of the palace, a long satin robe covering her body. Bedroom slippers clad feet padded quietly in the dead of the night as she tried to recall which way would lead her to the kitchen. Link was sleeping soundly back in their room, coming close to snoring at any time soon, and she was glad he was tired enough that he was almost making noises. If he snored, it meant he was so tired that he would not wake up so easily, thus it meant she could make as much noise as she wanted when packing her things.

She turned right and sighed out in relief when she saw no one standing in the corridor. Zelda had managed to hide her pair of riding boots inside the mailbag she found lying about in the closet and would rather change her shoes outside of the palace, but if she wanted to bring some snacks and water with her, she would have to do it by the time she arrived in the kitchen. She would have to remove her robe as well before she left for the outside, but if she was not mistaken, there was a door leading directly to the courtyard. A quick escape route in case someone happened to pass by, but they would not, it was far too early according to her pocket watch.

It had been so easy. Link all but collapsed onto the bed, the mattress shifting as he clawed his hands at the comforters and pulled it over his body all the while mumbling incoherently, few of which she somehow made out. Her eyes did not stray away from the pages of her book and her lips quirked up almost too happily as she answered that yes, she would be awake for a while longer, and when he groaned again she replied with "goodnight, Prince Link," and waited for at least five minutes before the first traces of snores left his mouth. Content with his unconsciousness, the princess calmly got up from the bed and went to prepare a shower, closing the door quietly behind her back and slipping inside the bathtub, eager to leave. Still she took her time to bathe, feeling rejuvenated after an entire day of lounging in bed and sleeping through most of it under the guise of feeling a little under the weather, a feat she somehow managed to pull. Zelda dismissed Robyn that day and lent him her encyclopedia so he could study Hyrule's history further without her, and she had no doubts that he would do exceptionally well without her being there to help him.

Her notes were hidden among the pages of the book she was reading by the time her husband got to their chambers, but hiding them there was not needed seeing as Link was so fatigued he barely spared her a glance, not that he would. She let it not get to her, but she could not deny that she was not completely pleased with his reaction, or lack of thereof, at the sight of a book in her hands. Sometimes he was out of his mind just enough to ask what she was reading, though it rarely happened. He would hold a conversation for a while before he remembered he was not supposed to be talking to her and would grow silent and only speak again to wish her a good night's sleep. She did not understand why it happened and wondered if it meant he was getting comfortable with her.

The kitchen was deserted, just as she had hoped. Light filtered through the windows and painted squares of orange light on the dark floor, and for some reason it made her think of her home. Of the lively kitchen with polite cooks and baskets of fresh vegetables brought from the market streets of Castle Town, and at times the cooks would be careless enough to let a cucco slip inside while the princess was present in the same room. She thought of the burning logs under big pots of food, coal ovens that baked her favorite goods, fine tea sets placed on silver trays with freshly baked pastries and fresh cut up fruits on the side. She thought of the taste of Hyrulean coffee and how she missed it, how the green tea from Twilight Realm tasted odd on her tongue and burned her throat, then she thought of the scenery and how it differed greatly. Here the leaves were of a darker green shade that resembled black, the same could be said about the trunks that were, usually, thin and elongated and twisted at odd angles. Everything was darker than usual and that was something she could not seem to adjust.

After only some weeks in this Realm, Zelda had already grown used to the luxuries it provided, such as the indoor plumbing and the doors that opened by themselves. Going back to Hyrule would leave her a bit lost when the time came for her to bathe, but she would always readjust, it was not so hard. Link, however, would feel it the most, having lived with these things for all of his life. He already did not like the idea of having to leave Twilight and move to the other side of the mirror. He would only hate the experience even more.

Oddly, Zelda felt distress tugging at her heartstrings, but quickly pushed it aside as she stepped further into the kitchen and proceeded to change. Sitting on a stool, she removed her shoes and put on her boots, then shrugged off her robe and neatly folded it before placing it into the mailbag along with her fluffy slippers. Now standing on her feet again, she went about to collect some snacks, just a few apples and oranges, maybe a loaf of bread, and she did not forget to fill two canteens with water, she would need that. Satisfied with what she got, the princess arranged the items inside her bag and closed its clap in a hurry, rushing out the kitchen through the backdoor that thankfully existed, afraid someone would join her at any moment.

She pulled the hood of her riding gown over her head and ran through the courtyard towards the stables, finding some resistance to open the heavy doors, but she gave her all and forced it open with a grunt, the hinges squeaking almost too loudly in the silent atmosphere. Epona and most of the birds awoke with the sound, and so did hers, head snapping up from its comfortable place under its wings to glance at the woman catching her breath on the doorway. Touching her braid for a brief moment to check if it was still tied securely, the princess glared at the bird's head as she made her way to it, steps heavier and tenser than usual and movements sharper as she yanked the door of its pen open and took it by the reins.

"Listen here," she said firmly whilst leading it out of the barn. "You will cooperate, and if you do not I will have you fried for dinner, do you hear me?" Perhaps she should feel a bit crazy for talking to the Shadow Kargarok, for threatening it no less, but it seemed to understand her words, as weird as that sounded, and she huffed in contentment.

Checking the clock quickly before mounting the beast – it read three-fifty in the morning – Zelda inhaled deeply and held her breath as she kicked and urged the bird to run and fly, and soon they crossed over the outer walls of the palace, the farthest they had ever gone.

In the morning, Link woke up to find the other side of the bed cold, empty, and neatly made. While it was not a foreign occurrence, for his wife was more of an early riser than he would ever be, it was still unsettling that there was no sound of running water coming from their adjoining bathroom. He sat up slowly, one hand on his face as he rubbed the sleep away from his eyes and blinked them several times to fully wake up. Lips twisted in a frown at the thought of having to get up and work on more boring paperwork, and often times he wondered how his life would be if he were raised as a simple ranch boy, living in a secluded little village away from the busy capital.

The prince sluggishly pushed himself out of bed and dragged his feet towards the windows, yanking the thick, dark curtains open to let the orange light of perpetual twilight illuminate his room and cast long shadows on the floor. As he looked at his chambers now, her half of the bed made and her presence absent from the room, he almost felt like he was single again, but the golden band around his finger weighed way too much to let him forget he was married to a princess of another realm. His fingertip brushed over the cool metal absentmindedly before his hands dropped to his sides and he went inside the bathroom. A bath was much needed and he left the water running as he retrieved a clean change of clothes and stripped himself of his pajamas, leaving them lying by the foot of the bathtub. Link stepped inside and lowered himself to lean against the edge, arms hanging over the brim and hot water slowly but surely rising up to cover all of his body. As he drummed his fingers on the fine, polished material of the bathtub, his half-lidded eyes stared blankly at the wall for he had nothing better to look at. A sigh escaped his lips and he closed the faucet, water drops dripping from its end and falling by his feet, and he watched transfixed as circles formed like they had on the day when Zelda had her hand submerged in the sink not too far from him.

Frowning at his own behavior, Link huffed and started to wash himself, now eager to start the day.

Minutes later, he was clean and changed, walking to the dining hall with his hair still damp from his bath and fists lightly clenched by his sides. He was in a sour mood and had little patience left in stock to do his chores of the day, but it was not like he could dump all of it on Midna's back so he could run away to the forest and be truly alone to think and relax. The servants seemed to notice the vibes that came from his moving form and they fled his way by entering the closest rooms they came across, or pressed their backs to the walls whilst holding their breaths, silently watching as the prince went on his way through the castle. It was not unusual, but when the prince was angry, he was angry and no one had better not stand in his path lest he decided to blow up the moment he saw their faces.

A few times Zant let his bad aura known; it was a part of his job for the Royal Guard that he could not disconnect from fully, but Link's was far worse. He had a temper that was hard to control and often felt the urge to break things to calm down. There was a reason why the Royal Family kept a room full of cheap clay vases and pots: so the young prince could break them and not someone's arm.

At the moment, he was considering taking a detour for that room, but his need to check on his wife to guarantee that things kept running smoothly outweighed his need to smash something to pieces. Link's nerves flared up slightly when he entered the dining hall and did not spot her there, and his family grew quiet as he stood rooted to the spot by the threshold for a long moment too long before stiffly making his way to his seat, fringe slightly obscuring his face. "Where is Zelda?"

Both his mother and father shared a glance and Midna spoke before any of them could even part their lips. "She woke up earlier than us all." Unbeknown to her, the first half of her lie was correct. "By the time we arrived she had already left. She's off somewhere with Robyn." Link regarded his sister in silence, then nodded curtly, seemingly pleased with her answer, and turned his attention to the food.

The rest of the family was just as good liars as Midna and they knew exactly what to do so Link would not doubt her words. They fell back into an amicable conversation, working to maintain relaxed posture and voices, and avoiding looking his way too much as to not rise suspiciousness. While they, but his mother especially, were happy that Link was showing he cared for his wife, they could not brush aside the feeling that there was something very wrong with it. It was sudden and literally happened overnight, as if something happened during his sleep and marked him so deeply that it led him to act differently around her. Ardian joked halfheartedly when alone with his wife and daughter that Link had seen an event involving Zelda in his dreams, and while his son had never had any prophetic dreams before, it was known that his daughter-in-law was extremely sensitive to spiritual occurrences – maybe her presence around him could trigger something in him.

Now it seemed, however, that the source of his foul mood was the absence of his wife. Clearly, she was not in the room when he woke up and none of them happened to see her before meeting in the dining hall, simply believing that the Hyrulean princess was in her chambers with her husband. They would keep the act going until they found where she was hiding. In his current state, Link really did not need to know that no one had a clue of her whereabouts.

Elliét sipped her tea gingerly, eyes holding Midna's gaze. "The festival is just some weeks away." The delicate teacup touched the saucer with a light clink when she lowered it away from her lips. "I am so excited!"

Midna smiled at her mother. "We should try our outfits today. What do you think, Link?" She inquired with a slight quirk of her eyebrow, trying to drag her brother into the conversation in hopes to take his mind out of his wife. She felt weird doing that, all this time they were trying to make him think of her and now...

"Not in the mood," he grumbled darkly from behind his cup of black coffee. His elbow and forearm were propped on the table, his shoulders slumped and there was a dark glare on his face. He was the perfect picture of someone ready to explode any moment.

His sister was not to be deterred so easily. "Then what do you say that we go through the desserts on the menu this evening?"

Link's eyes, which had been zeroed on the basket of fruits, Zelda's favored foods in the mornings, shot in her direction and he pondered over her words. Midna was smiling invitingly, knowing that the only way to get him to relax a bit was to include sweets on their schedule, and since Link's favorite dessert was part of the menu it would be easier to persuade him. Link did not look intimidating in the least, but his short-tempered nature could make up for his lack height and glowing red eyes. Thankfully, this unique man had a unique weakness: his sweet tooth. As childish as it sounded, one could calm him down before he reached his breaking point if they offered him something sweet that he liked. Not many people, such as the servants, knew of this trick, though. It was something Midna found out by accident when they were youths.

Returning his gaze to the fruits, Link nodded and sipped his drink, not seeing when Zant's shoulders drooped in relief even though the man was sitting across from him.

Zelda rummaged through her mailbag, but the silver pocket watch was nowhere in sight. She huffed angrily, going after her annotations and the compass she found in the library instead, glad that at least she could see if she was going in the right direction or not. The arrow pointed north and she studied her hand drawn map intently, the reins of her ride secured firmly around her right wrist. The left one still hurt at times, but she would not let a little pain stop her from talking to the goddesses.

The geography books Link brought her when asked were better than the ones she found in the library. They had more information, more maps and details, and coupled with the ones she had already seen and her own geography books from Hyrule she managed to find what she believed to be Lake Hylia's counterpart. It was located southeast of Twilight Palace and, according to her calculations, only a few hours away. Zelda believed that Shadow Kargaroks moved faster than horses. In her head, she would cover the distance in much less than five hours, but now there was no way to know if she really would for it seemed her pocket watch fell from her mailbag at some point. She would have to get Midna a new one, no problem, but now she was relying purely on instinct to find out how much time her little escapade would take. She hope that they would not worry if they did not see her for a few hours. She did, after all, leave during the night, and they would be awake only for the minority of her time away.

Her bird chose to sit beside her under the shade of a tree when they stopped to rest for a few minutes. Zelda was impressed at the layout of Twilight Realm; it was much different than Hyrule. She did not notice much when she left the palace weeks ago, but when she was flying over the city, she saw just how unique the place was. Sure, Hyrule had endless cliffs too, if one were brave enough to wander too close to the borders of Hyrule Field, especially the eastern portion located north of Kakariko Village and Death Mountain. From the edge, they would see just how deep it was, but Twilight Realm was composed mostly of cliffs rather than plains and mountains. From above, they seemed like islands, but instead of being surrounded by a body of water, there was nothing but a bottomless pit to greet you, and now she understood why they used birds and not horses, not that she had seen any of the latter around. Zelda had a feeling that the Twili had no clue of what a horse was in the first place.

The state of eternal twilight that shrouded the land did not help much, either. Even in broad day light, glimpsing at the bottom of the cliffs of Hyrule would grant you with the view of darkening stones until they, at some point down below, blackened out. In Twilight, due to the lack of a midday sun, or the lack of a sun itself, caused the cliffs to grow dark much closer to the edge than in Hyrule, which betrayed just how far one could fall. You could jump and find out that there was solid ground some feet below, or you could jump and find that the hole stretched deeper than the ones back at home, not that she knew how far those ones went.

The princess could not help but imagine what would happen to her if the bird decided to try to drop her once again. With a shudder, she put her things away and urged the Shadow Kargaork to stand. They were not very far.

She admired the scenery whilst flying through the air. The twilight was beautiful, and the matchless dark trees seemed to compliment it nicely, even though the plants were odd looking. Some clouds resembled fog in her eyes, and she wondered in the back of her mind if it rained here, too. So far, not one drop of water fell from the sky since the princess arrived. She wanted to know if the Twilight Realm and Hyrule had things in similar, having already found out that her temporary home was far more developed than the kingdom she grew up in. Those were things she could try to adapt and install all throughout the territory, although it would take a few years.

Finally, she spotted it, the lake. Lake Hylia's Twili counterpart lay in the center of a plain, surrounded by round rocks and medium sized bushes with few trees scattered about, and high boulders on its far side that resembled the stones that separated the Lanayru Province from Gerudo Desert. They landed and the princess dismounted the Shadow Kargarok, leading it through the open space and closer to the rock wall, inspecting it until she spotted an alcove, an opening on its rough and jagged surface. After tying the bird to a tree close by the lake so it could drink and leaving some apples behind for it to snack on, she glimpsed inside the cave before entering, finding that the inner walls glowed almost eerily, a soft blue light that made her think of the patterns drawn everywhere in the Twilight Palace. Farther into the small cave she went and not too far from the entrance she found a shallow pool of water, which, oddly, seemed to be the source of the glow that illuminated the area. That was the perfect spot, Zelda decided, as she brought herself to her knees and her right thumb drew the outlines of a triangle on her bosom starting from the bottom left: Wisdom.

Post chapter notes:

- I imagine Twilight Realm being like Skyloft: all islands and pits. That's one of the reasons why I use Shadow Kargaroks as means of transportation haha

- still laughing at Zelda for threatening the bird, just so you know lmao