I was still on my knees, the shock rippling through me.

The man swept to his feet, still with that awful grin. "I am the Demon Lord Ghirahim – or at least, part of his spirit," he finished bitterly. He looked utterly unhinged, and I was hoping I'd throw up and roll over and someone would shake me awake and this would be yet another dream. Nope. "I am all of the spirits contained within this place – and I am none of them. Congratulations, boy. You survived… unlike the petulant brat before you." In a flurry of what looked like twilit diamonds, he suddenly reappeared with his lips almost on my ear, whispering fondly, "That one snapped like a twig."

Flinching, I stumbled to my feet, trying to put as much distance as possible between us. What the hell kind of freak show was this? Who came before me? Not the kid. Couldn't be the kid, right? Oh my goddesses, but I might actually be losing my mind. Instead of formulating an intelligible response, I was staring at the octagonal stone room, not unlike the pedestal room in the kid's Temple of Time, except a little larger, and there was no pedestal here – or doors. My nerves were nearly frayed, and yet I somehow found the gall to demand, "What is this place? What's going on?"

"This is the Shadow Temple, boy. Built by the Sheikah for all of their despicable acts, their most deplorable practices, to hide all of their misdeeds from the light." Whatever this guy was, he seemed to be enjoying himself immensely. I did not share his enthusiasm. How the hell could I escape a place with no doors? And if we were still in the Shadow Temple… that meant the kid was waiting somewhere for me. Din. The spirit continued gleefully, "This temple is the goddess-given receptacle of all of Hyrule's evil – and you will join us-"

"Shit."

There was no time to duck or dodge. Ghirahim came at me with such speed I barely got my sword up in time to deflect a blow to my head. He raised his blade again, but I rolled out of the way, trying to retreat to a position even remotely more defensible… except I was trapped in this stupid door-less room. This time when he charged, his blade caught my side, right where the glowing sword wound had been, and tore me open again. Fear and desperation gnawed at me, and I felt so powerless – furious and despairing and trapped. I hadn't wanted to fight Link, illusion or not, and I most certainly did not want to fight this Demon Lord guy. I didn't want to die again, or feel like I was dying, or Farore, Nayru, and Din, but why was all of this happening? How did I make it stop? I wasn't a swordsman. I had just barely enough skills with a sword to not stab myself with the pointy end while swinging it around… but no, I was expected to endure this pitiful excuse for a fight-

Ghirahim cackled and I nearly threw up out of panic, because the man abruptly transformed into a massive wave of dense, crackling shadow and ploughed into me, forcing my back against the rough stone of the chamber wall. Couldn't breathe under the weight of it, or see – only pressure, and a warm, dense buzzing in my head, screaming at me to fight back.

Fight back against what?

But then the next wave came, and I gritted my teeth as it washed over me, trying to drown me in its intoxicatingly dark aura. It was complete agony – like every cell in my body was being electrocuted all over again by Dragmire's magic, and on top of it all my lungs burnt from lack of air while I slowly succumbed to blood loss.

"Embrace me," a million voices rasped. "This power is yours."

In the center of my chest, I felt the fragments of Zant's knife hum to life again, nearly forcing me to all fours with the pain. The man returned, this time to kick me onto my back, so that I lay panting desperately for air as he straddled my torso. I squirmed beneath him, levitating the dagger strapped to my ankle, willing it to strike him- but he laughed and plucked it out of the air. My body wouldn't cooperate from the earlier magic attack; helplessly, I felt his hand curl around my neck, the other pressed against my chest to extract the knife as it ever so slowly, so agonizingly slowly, rose through muscle and bone and skin. By the time he'd extracted and reassembled it, I was half-conscious from the pain and the blood loss. Ghirahim waved the obsidian blade in my face until I flinched appropriately.

"This… this is your birthright," he hissed. "You will accept it." With a flourish, he plunged the goddesses-damned thing back into my chest, and I let out a strangled shriek as the tainted twilight unraveled in thick ribbons, attempting to melt into my body. It burnt.

Oh Farore, Nayru, and Din but I was dying.

He twisted the blade and I felt the power coursing through my veins, willing me to absorb it, but I was too busy writhing in pain. Vision darkened. Thoughts in bursts. All I had to do was let the energy meld – let it join my own magic. All I had to do was assimilate it.

I was back in the dungeon and Dragmire had my collar, had hoisted me off my feet and started slamming the back of my head into the cell bars. "Tell me, boy!" he demanded, but I couldn't focus. Slipping. Terrible magic shocked me back to consciousness if only for a few moments.

Twili throne room. Link looked stricken, unwilling to raise his sword against me.

Zelda's hands on my face, lips on my cheek-

"TAKE IT, BOY!" howled Ghirahim, but I had found a golden thread, shining in the darkness, and I held it like a lifeline.

I would die soon. Slip away. Pain would stop.

"TAKE IT!"

All I had to do was absorb it. I could do anything with it.

Anything.

Reaching out, I nearly touched one of the tainted ribbons-

'Link!'

Without warning, a blinding flash of blue-green energy burst from my body, somehow forcing the knife from my chest and disintegrating it in mid-air. Ghirahim gawked. I dissolved out from under him, reappearing on the other side of the chamber, bow nocked with a twilit arrow. My chest ached and I could barely breathe, but that golden light was there just in my periphery, and I refused to touch that goddesses-damned tainted shit, because if I did, I knew I'd never see Zelda again. She'd shivered at the slightest touch, and I couldn't bear to break the connection. She'd found me somehow, centuries in the past. She'd found me.

"Zelda."

'Come back to me.'

"I will."

The bow sang, and Ghirahim dissipated like smoke.

I finally shut my eyes.

x

"Awake, Dark Link."

It felt like I was suspended in warm, dense something, and my muddled brain brilliantly supplied, Pudding. Must be pudding.

'Link.'

I managed to crack an eye open, only to find that no, it was not pudding – just some kind of weird light, shining down from some unseen ceiling, while Impa stared at me, with what I assumed to be her smug expression from her spot on what looked like one of those stone pedestals the kid used for warping. Trance broken, I felt my boots touch the raised stone platform in the center of the oddly cavernous room. At least I wasn't bleeding anymore.

"Oh my goddesses, I'm dead," I muttered automatically.

Impa laughed at me.

Indignant, I started to retort when she just shook her head and smiled. "I assure you, you are very much alive. You have completed a series of tests."

I heard the words, but they didn't make sense. It was like hearing a foreign language. "What?" I stared at her blankly, mouth dry. I really, really hoped she wasn't about to say that all of the awful, painful, psychologically-scarring things I'd just endured were done to me on purpose. "What tests? What are you talking about? Where's Link?"

"He has freed me; he will join us shortly." She must have recognized the look on my face because she smiled placidly again. "You have successfully completed a series of tests… as a Sheikah."

"And that's great. Wonderful. Except I don't know what that means. You said I'm a Sheikah, but I don't know why that's significant," I snapped back. She looked mildly surprised, but I was too desperate to pause right now. Or apologize. "I don't understand why I'm here, I don't know what a Sheikah even is, or how I fell into the water temple, or how I managed to go back to the future – my present – or how any of that shit happened in the Shadow Temple with Link and Ghirahim and- and who the hell is Ghirahim anyway and why did he try to-"

Impa drifted across the platform to press her fingers against my mouth in an awkward show of what I assumed to be understanding, but I just wanted to explode. When her hands settled on my shoulders, however, I instantly stilled. "We are the mixing of Shadow and Light – the very interface. We are Shadowfolk, bound to serve the Royal Family and the mortal incarnation of the goddess Hylia." I started shaking my head but she continued, "We have always been able to travel through time, if the goddess wills us; we are the original stewards of the Doors and Gates of Time. To complete your training, you must prove yourself worthy of protecting your charge." I opened my mouth to protest but she just smiled again, knowingly. "Princess Zelda. I sense your connection now. Wisdom chose you, and bound you together."

I stepped back, wanting to correct her, to say I didn't understand – but I did. For whatever reason, I felt it all falling into place now as I stood here in this seemingly infinite chamber, in front of the Sage of Shadows. Maybe I'd known the truth all along. When I'd touched the Mirror and the twilight had started to dismantle me… it had been the Triforce that I'd felt. It had been Wisdom. Midna had pressed her hands against my chest, but she'd carried Zelda's Triforce – and it had been Zelda who had saved me.

Oh goddesses.

I was bound to Zelda, not Midna.

I wanted to be sick.

Impa nodded slowly. "Our people are at war in this time, and have nearly been driven to extinction, but there is hope… in you." Leaning in, she told me softly, almost tenderly, "You must return to your present for one final test. Good bye, Dark Link."

Before I could respond, she used some kind of warping spell to send me back to the waking world, and I sat up on the pedestal just outside of the Shadow Temple entrance, hopelessly confused. What hope? I did not inspire hope. I did not want any more assignments or training or whatever, and I never got to ask her about the issue of the goddesses-damned Mirror stuck inside of me. It was dark here, somewhere around midnight judging by the moon's position in the sky, and all I wanted to do was maybe not deal with any of this anymore. That despair surged through me again.

"Farore, Nayru, and Din, but I am losing my mind-"

'Link?'

"Did you know, Zelda?" I asked quietly.

'Only after you returned that night,' she replied just as quietly. Not quite subdued – she wasn't sheepish. But she did seem regretful maybe. 'I couldn't be sure. I am sorry. I have no more secrets from you, Link.'

"You bound me to you that night in the Mirror Chamber," I continued, staring off into the darkness of the graveyard. "Why?"

'Something… I had to save you. It was the only way I knew how, but the Sheikah were only a legend. Midna first reminded me, after you woke in the cave… I believe she recognized what you had become… the Twili are descended from the Sheikah banished during the Civil War.'

"The Dark Interlopers." She nearly flinched at the name, but I could feel her acknowledgement; I wasn't wrong. "The dark magic-users. They were sent to the Twilight Realm."

'Link, I am sorry.'

I let out a long, deep sigh, bringing a hand up to rub at my face tiredly. All of the injuries I'd received apparently were part of the illusion, but I still felt the phantom seeping of the blood, or the smarting of open wounds. It was totally disconcerting, and even now, sitting silently in the moonlight, absently counting the visible grave-markers, I found myself questioning my reality. Except, I could still feel that connection between us humming along in the center of my chest, almost like a rope anchoring our hearts together… like I could see the shimmering golden thread extending out of my chest, stretching away into the darkness and through the centuries, to where it finally connected with Zelda in the same way. I sighed again.

"I want you to know that… that the way I feel… about you isn't because of- goddesses, I sound so stupid right now," I snapped at myself. She fluttered breathlessly in the background but I wanted to punch myself in the face. "I- Zelda, the way I feel about you hasn't been from whatever magic happened with the Mirror or the Triforce. I… I didn't even know we were bound together like this until literally just a few minutes ago, when I got my confirmation. When I- when I tried to protect you in the throne room, just before Ganondorf possessed you… or when I heard you on the trail and found those bastards trying to- Zelda, I wanted to help you. I did those things- I want to protect you and defend you, and it's not tied to some stupid duty or whatever I've apparently been charged with by whatever… authority-"

'Link…'

Din. My face was getting hot. She wasn't even here in person and yet I was trying to avert my eyes. "I don't- I don't just-" You can't say it, can you? my subconscious demanded. You can't tell her. This was the dumbest thing. Why had I started this conversation? Why was I making such poor life decisions right now? Farore, Nayru, and Din. I'd just endured some of the realest hallucinations of my life, but for some reason, needed to impress this upon her right now. She needed to know. "Look, I- I'm not just some soldier of yours, okay?"

'I never-'

"I'm not. It's more than that." But that's all I could say. My palms were sweating so much I had to wipe them down on my filthy pants. Zelda seemed uncertain, but also maybe… expectant? Feeling cornered, I determinedly changed the subject. "I'll go back to the Temple of Time with the kid. I'm coming back – I'll find you. Stay safe until then. Is Link with you?"

'Not yet. I am with Midna… and Renado.'

I swore loudly enough that an owl roosting in a nearby tree flapped off in a startled huff. "I swear to Din, I better get to hear all of that story the second I get back. Stay safe. Please. All of you."

I sensed a smile from her, but we were interrupted by a flurry of purple sparks and the kid landing directly on top of me. Rolling out from under him, I laid on the grass for a minute or two trying to catch my breath, except he seemed to have a different idea as he leaned down and put his face directly in mine.

"Hey D, I talked to Impa and Rauru but Impa said that you're a Sheikah now but you have to go home. How did you get that tattoo to show up on your face now? You know I waited for a while outside the door but when it disappeared-"

"Kid, yeah, cool, but take it down a notch, will you?"

He seemed to sober up a bit at that, and rocked back onto his heels, hands behind his back. "Where did you go? The door disappeared."

"Some kind of freaky Sheikah test," I replied a little too easily. My insides were still reeling from the past few hours… or was it days? I'd been so eager to find a purpose for my life, and I'd apparently had one all along – or at least, since this crazy twilit adventure began. Too much to process. I grinned, but it lacked my usual brightness. "How about you? Freed Impa, huh? Did she give you anything cool?"

"Nah, just the medallion."

Link stretched luxuriously before settling down beside me. We had our backs against the rough stone of the bluff, and a clear view of Malon's grave. Despite this inadvertent view, he didn't seem very distraught or even somber; I couldn't quite figure out what emotion he was giving off, but it was definitely more on the positive side, and it was a little shocking. His bright blond hair was mussed, and there were some new holes in his tunic, but he seemed to be doing exceedingly well despite having spent significant time in a crypt. Couldn't say that I felt the same, but hey, I guessed psychological torture had to have some kind of an effect.

In an attempt to bait the story out of him, I shrugged and told him offhandedly, "Sorry I disappeared like that. You apparently didn't have any trouble finishing the place yourself, though."

His demeanor changed in an instant, and I nearly regretted saying anything. "It's okay. I- You know, I've wanted to tell you something, D. Maybe for a while." Hiding his face in his hands for a moment, he let out a massive sigh as if trying to steady himself. "I… You are a great friend. You've been a great friend to me, and I guess I always knew that you'd have to go home to your own time. I… I just wanted to let you know that I'm going to be fine." I almost fired off a snarky retort, but Link shook his head at the look on my face. "I just want to say that to you, okay? It's for my sake, mostly. After Malon died, I didn't think I would finish this stupid quest. I didn't want to. But I feel like you helped me understand the importance of it all. Even if you didn't mean to," he added with a cheeky grin.

I just looked at him. "Kid-"

Link smiled and he looked so goddesses-damned innocent in that moment, despite a few stray flecks of blood on his cheek. The bright, clear blue of eyes sparkled in the moonlight with a kind of fire – determination – and I realized something really had changed for him. He wasn't a kid anymore. Everything… it was all real to him now, and he was owning it. Against my best efforts, I felt my heart swell a little in something like pride.

"D, I'm gonna be fine," he continued confidently. "I'm gonna go to the Temple of Time with you, and then I'm gonna go up to the castle and save Hyrule. But I'm not going to do it because it's my job, or because Sheik says so…" His face softened. "I'm doing it because I can, just like your friend Link. I'm doing it for Malon."

I clapped him on the shoulder, unable to restrain myself. "I'm proud of you, kid," I said forcefully. He looked surprised and almost embarrassed, but I squeezed his shoulder in reassurance. "I mean it. You've grown a lot in the time I've known you, and a lot of it wasn't fair, I know. A lot of it was because you had to, and Farore, but you're one of the toughest people I know. I'm glad I was able to help you, even if it was mostly from your shadow, and mostly with sarcastic commentary."

He laughed at that and we both stood, looking out across the cemetery for a moment before he took out his ocarina. Just as he brought it to his mouth, he paused and glanced at me again. "Thanks, D."

It would have been easy to just say, "You're welcome," but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. There was too much insincerity in it, like I was trying to take credit for something that wasn't in any way mine. And it pained me to think of what his life would be like once he was back on his own. It wasn't that I didn't think he could defeat Ganondorf – oh no, it was more that I couldn't bear to think about the possibility of his being alone again. I couldn't think of anything worse than the poor kid getting sent back to his own time, but having his memories wiped, so that he never knew that yes, he could find friends and a place for himself. …But then, too, it was awful to think of him going back in time and retaining all of his memories, but having to relive seven years of his life all over again with everyone only he remembered knowing. Sheik would probably be waiting for us in the Temple of Time, so we would need to discuss these things before I could think of leaving with a semi-clear conscious… because in the end, I was a selfish idiot.

With those sad thoughts in mind, I dissolved into his shadow. "No, kid," I replied slowly. "Thank you."