We split up. Looking back now, it probably wasn't the best idea, especially since there were only three of us, disallowing for the use of the buddy system. Or really, any other system that might avoid that goddesses-damned hand that kept creeping through the walls after me. Much to my chagrin, the Palace of Twilight was organized as two identical branches on either side of the main complex that housed the throne room, living areas, and conferencing halls. These peripheral areas contained libraries and gardens and one sol each, like anti-Mirror shards. I sincerely hoped that the guy who came up with the idea of the freaking hand as a security feature was dead, because if he wasn't, he should sure as hell expect a sword to the gut from me, with love.
Granted, I only had this room and the entrance hall to get through before I was home-free. But in order to have gotten this far, I'd dropped the stupid glowing ball of calamity several times, been attacked by obnoxiously screeching birds, half-killed by a crowd of shadow beasts, and forced to make a trip back to the library where I'd first found it, after the freaking hand stole my sol. Whatever happened to using dogs for security?
'I don't know if there is a Twili equivalent to a dog.'
The second to last door slammed shut, and just as I leapt the gap to the nearest glowing elevator, the wall behind me lit with a red geometric pattern and the hand emerged. Obstacles didn't slow the damn thing down at all, and this place sure had enough of them; rooms largely consisted of staircases and lofts fitted out with seating areas or collections of artefacts. Sometimes the upper levels were connected by elevators that only activated with a step of faith out into nothing. They would glow with green runes before shuddering to a start and gliding silently across the room to the adjacent landing. Handy, if you weren't waiting for the damn thing to drift over and save you from your own personal lethal stalker. "Do you ever quit, you creepy bastard?" I screamed at it, waiting anxiously at the very edge of the ledge, the toes of my boots hanging over empty space. "Why can't you bugger off? This is mine, I won it, you lost it, go die in a hole!"
The hand flexed its fingers and I swore, almost dropping the sol at the sight of the reaction. Hastily grasping it by my fingertips, I held on and shouted incoherently at the glowing runes beneath my feet, demanding that they hurry. And then I got the distinct feeling of being watched as the hair on my nape stood on end. In slow motion, I turned my head over my shoulder and flinched violently over the edge when I spotted the hand within grabbing distance. I let out a strangled swearword just as my hand shot out, struggling for a grip – except, I could levitate myself. And the sol, technically speaking. Without wasting another second I invoked the spectacular pros of twilight and fantastically avoided splattering against the obsidian floor, sol suspended well out of reach of the eerie fingers because the last thing I wanted was to see that damn hand snatching it away again. I most definitely did not fancy trekking all the way back through this wing to that damn library just to start the mad dash out all over again. It actually seemed confused for a second too – or at least, it stopped to twitch its fingers as if trying to make sense of my apparent disappearance. I blew a raspberry at its hesitation and rushed for the far exit, the gilded double doors that marked the end of this scavenger hunt, a reunion, and hopefully the finale of this nightmare. Sol hovering just over my fingertips, I glanced behind one last time, caught sight of a particularly undesirable silhouette, cried out in anger and frustration and desperation, and finally threw open the doors with a staccato blast of magic. The residual force sent us flying onto the rough, rock-strewn courtyard where the hand at long last ceased its pursuit and dissolved into the shadows of the doorjamb; I shut my eyes and breathed a sigh of relief as the familiar gentle twilight bathed my face again.
I think this is the most beautiful moment of my life, Zel.
Then she ruined it.
"What took you so long?" snapped Midna from a good stone's throw away. She and Link were on the central island of stone at the foot of the staircase that led to the Mirror and our ticket out of Nightmare Land. He looked more than a bit disheveled beside her, with his hair mussed and tunic slightly torn, but a patronizing grin nevertheless tugging at his mouth. Idiot.
"In case you didn't have the pleasure, I had to deal with a giant freaking hand that followed this freaking ball everywhere." She looked unconvinced and I very nearly kicked the sol out of exasperation. It was like I'd stalled on purpose, just to inconvenience her, just to be Dark Link, the little storm cloud that rained on everyone's parades. Grudgingly I admitted, "I got knocked over a few times."
Rolling her eyes, she just said, "You would," before pointing at the empty one of a pair of small indentations in the dark stone. "Put it there and we'll see what happens." I set it down like she said, and watched with muted amazement as the sols reacted and lit Link's sword with an intense glitter. "The guardian deities of my world are on our side too," she grinned wickedly.
I stared. "Of course they are. Zant's face is beyond offensive." Somewhat put out, I pulled my own blade out of its sheath and stared in disappointment. "Well that was anticlimactic. Not that I really enjoy using this thing, but it'd be nice if mine sparkled too." Link fff'd. Then without warning he swung the Master Sword upwards and against mine with an almighty clang that chattered my teeth and left my hands numb. I was about to berate him when the metal suddenly adopted a dull sheen, a kind of black sparkle that twirled along the edges in impossible patterns. He looked entirely too pleased with himself and my undisguised amazement. "I said a sparkly sword, not a charcoaled mess," I snapped at him without venom. Hefting it lightly, I twisted the blade into a figure-eight and stared, mesmerized, at the beautiful grey and black shine it left in its wake. Link crossed his arms and leant back on his heels. "Oh, come on. You can't have known that was going to happen."
He tapped the brim of his hat, and I rolled my eyes. Midna treated us to that toothy smile of hers, practically purring, "Let's go."
The front of the main palace seemed to be drowning in a constant cascade of tainted twilight from an unseen source. If it weren't for the impenetrable darkness shrouding the area, I might have been able to see if the building had been carved into the side of a mountain or something useful like that. After everything we'd been through, it would've been good to know if Zant were especially well-stocked in a blockaded fortress or some sort. I generally liked heads-up sorts of explanations. Most normal people did. But when would we ever get briefed when it came to ambushes? Hell, we were walking straight into this one. Or leaping, in Link's case.
Before Midna could open her mouth about sticking his sword into the first strange substance he could find, he'd taken a running start for the waterfall, let out a tremendous cry as he switched into the downswing, and smashed the blade clean through the cascade. To everyone's surprise the charged blade deflected the twilight enough to actually divert the flow on either side of the entryway, a simple set of doors under the protection of a carved awning. I eyed him suspiciously and followed more cautiously, my bow drawn rather than my most recently twilit weapon. Yeah, my sword looked pretty enough, but if his repelled twilight, would mine attract it? Would mine channel it, or do something equally strange? Somewhat distractedly, I crept along behind Link, caught almost in the edges of his shadow, while he moved swiftly through the first few rooms. Zant really tore up the place when he moved in, because the foyer, first corridor, and first hall (since the general theme of the architecture seemed to have been limited to let's-add-as-many-halls-as-we-can) had all been stripped bare of any tapestries with the royal crest and virtually destroyed. What little furniture the palace contained now rested in pitiful pieces, some charred and some clean-edged, swept along the edges and into the corners like forgotten corpses of Midna's administration.
The sols that controlled the staircases had also been misplaced; someone had rolled them into clouds of tainted twilight that crept along the floor, having filtered in from some external vent. I floated right into the thick of it and passed the sols to Link with two solid kicks, and then watched as the series of individual steps rose out of the floor. Midna sighed. "So," I began, "Do you love having parties or something?"
Blinking, her eyes narrowed and she adopted that twisted smirk. "Sure, Link. We party so hard it would make Zelda's hair curl." I couldn't tell if her words were sarcastic or not. Not a good sign. Maybe I was losing my touch. Or maybe she was being completely serious, because I could totally imagine Midna having an abnormally high tolerance for intoxicating substances, and risqué behavior.
"No," I continued. "No, your stairs and your lifts – they all can be moved to make more space on the actual floor. They rise out of the floor. It's almost like you're trying to save space for something."
She adopted a thoughtful look. We'd both materialized on either side of Link's head, and while he didn't seem particularly amused with our spatial arrangement, he did seem mildly interested in our conversation. Tilting her head back, she put her hands on her hips and sighed in careful consideration. "Hmm," she muttered. "Hmm. I think – you know, I never really thought about it. My people, we like efficiency. We like clean lines and functionality. This palace isn't nearly as old as Hyrule Castle, so maybe we learned from the Hylians' mistakes..." Laughing lightly, she floated around Link's shoulders. "It's so different from Zelda's castle."
"I wouldn't exactly know, unless you've got dungeons here too," I replied dryly. Link snorted and mumbled something incoherent, leading Midna to playfully box his ears, though I didn't miss the brief worried look she sent his way. He did, after all, instigate our first foray here with his unfortunate capture, so together we were quite the authority on prison cell quality. As I nonchalantly shot a Zant head through the eye, Link ducked, annoyed, trying to swat at her as she orbited around his head while he fended off another head. "I mean, I get the whole efficiency deal. The sol switches are kind of cool. In a way. I guess."
Her grin said it all.
"I didn't mean it like-"
"I love you too, Dark Link," she smiled sweetly.
Link fff'd, and I did too. Midna just grinned. "Oh, my little mutes. What am I to do with you?"
Oh, I don't know. Maybe get us out of here for a start? The palace was oriented in an overwhelmingly linear fashion with smaller rooms adjoining the series of disquietingly empty high-ceilinged halls, and by now, we had already passed through a showy (obliterated) library and at least two of the countless theatres. Midna kept us from checking the periphery with vague reassurances that we had no business trekking around through private quarters or deserted courts. She was right though, especially about the total unhelpfulness of a courtroom at a time like this and the fact that our one-track focus saved us valuable time. I didn't want to spend more time than necessary in such a creepy lair. Besides, aside from the shadow creatures and the infrequent other manifestations of tainted twilight, we hadn't encountered any real lifeforms, thus making the fanfare leading up to Zant a little more than unbearable. This guy's ego eclipsed the sun. Maybe that was why it was so dark and dingy in the Twilight Realm.
"You know," I started in my best simpering tone, "keeping with the efficiency theme, you might want to make the damn elevators move faster. We haven't got all day." I watched her accusingly, gesturing pointedly, impatiently at Link as he waited for the glowing runes beneath his boots to transport him to the next loft. Those stupid lifts took an eternity to do anything. I'd floated over to the exit almost upon entry, but poor Light Dwelling Link had to take the long way around by foot.
She snorted. "Pity him, he hasn't a magic bone in his body."
His raised eyebrow and mock-glare claimed, "Magic bones are overrated."
"Not when you can fly." I snickered at him. This was just too much fun. I found it hard to believe that we'd actually made it here, to the Twilight Realm, all in relatively complete pieces. In a way, it was remarkable. Link, an Ordonian ranch hand returning to action after a twenty-year time lapse, and me, a kind of accident. Our chances of success had to be abysmal, and yet, here we were, on solid twilit ground, alive. Different, but alive. We either had extraordinary luck, or ridiculous skill, and now, within a finite number of doors we'd be face to face with Zant and it would all be over. Here, at least. We'd still have that ray of sunshine Ganondorf to deal with, but we'd get there in due time. For now, I wanted to admire the balcony we'd reached, and the shifting clouds drifting just beyond reach, obscuring what might have been a valley lit by faint orange pinpricks, and extensive mountains beyond that. Barring the apparent abyss separating the foundations of the palace from the prospective valley, it was beautiful. The light even had a soft and fuzzy and indistinct quality that made me feel at home, which probably should have been more of an alarming thing than a comfort. But hey, I was willing to take anything that eased the general anxiety of being here.
When I spun around to face the reality of our expedition again, I wanted to smack my forehead. Link had found himself a fine collection of angry heads and he was battling it out with them right in front of another waterfall of twilight. I reached him within six steps, during which time I sniped at a few of his little problems. He rolled his eyes at me and fff'd, most likely commenting on my late reaction, but I just scoffed, bow still drawn albeit uselessly at such close range. As another rushed at me, I yanked out my sword, demanding, "Seriously, what is his fascination with these stupid heads? I don't understand the point in having them. The shadow things are more of a threat."
'Enemy's advocate, are you?'
The sounds of our scuffle attracted the attention of a flock of birds; to my left, Link had begun picking them off with his clawshot. I watched for a few minutes, then flexed my hands and readjusted my gauntlets. "You know what would be really cool? If I could harness all those birds and make them fly me around. Can you imagine that?"
You're an idiot, he glared. I grinned. And drove my shiny blade home through another head when a new group cropped up from the other side of the cascade. Link had rolled beneath a second, only to spring up and kill two at once with an intense spin attack, now that the birds had backed off. A clawshot to the face tended to have that effect. I rounded on him, leaning against my sword like a cane.
"Well aren't you fancy."
He dismissed me with a careless toss of his head, and dispatched the waterfall much the same way. This time though, rather than the waterfall guarding an entrance, it obscured a utility shaft of some sort draped in netting. Great. I loved finding dark, narrow places that led to goddesses knew where. It definitely got old after a while, but when I made to comment on our discovery, I noticed that Midna had her tongue between her teeth and a speculative look on her face. She caught my eye, twitched a nose I hadn't even known she had, and vanished up the creepy shaft in an obvious request.
Trailing her suspiciously, I scrutinized her expression and movements when we abruptly halted at the top, a narrow stone landing covered in nets and the worn cords that secured everything to metal rings. "Is something wrong?" Below us, Link was very noisily clawshot-ing his way up the walls and throwing us dirty looks with every other shot. "Because I'd definitely like to know about any sort of problems now, rather than in the midst of something ridiculous."
Her voice dropped considerably. "I wouldn't say wrong," she mumbled, casting a strained glance at the big chest. "But I don't know. I just, I need you to know that in case anything goes wrong, he has to be warped out, or at the very least, taken back to the Mirror."
"I can't warp." A terribly warm sickness had invaded my stomach. If anything went wrong? What was she playing at? I'd gotten myself hyped up on confidence and vengeance; I couldn't come back down now, not to this. I couldn't lose either of them now. "I don't know how. What could go that wrong?"
"I don't know- I'm just saying. As a back-up." Paling a little, she glanced back down at him. He was awkwardly adjusting the chain guard one-handed, the toes of his boots just barely resting on the rungs, his other hand tangled in the ropes above his head. Talented fellow, Link. "I don't want him to ever have to experience – I can't leave him here again. No matter what, he must be returned to Hyrule. He can't survive here, and if Zant somehow wins, I don't know what he'll do. But I will not let him hurt Link. Promise me you'll get him out, if something goes wrong." I stared at her, searching her gaze, but all I found was distinct determination and enraged passion. "Promise me, Link."
Just what the hell did "wrong" entail? From what I'd seen, Zant couldn't bring himself to actually kill Midna, not when he clearly pined for her affection. That scene in the throne room way back when was enough evidence of his delusion, and then in the sky garden, he'd used her as bait and left her incapacitated but decidedly alive. Sure, maybe he'd intended to leave her to die, but I liked to believe that he might have done a better job with injuring her if he had been at all serious about it. Instead, he'd left a window of opportunity for all of us to survive. For all his crazy magic and psychosis, he couldn't possibly be that inept, although I wouldn't necessarily mind. Just as all of that ran through my head, Midna jostled my shoulder urgently, not daring to say anything as Link clambered up onto the landing beside me.
"Okay. I promise." But I felt like I was signing someone's death sentence. I just hoped fervently that it wouldn't come down to my hapless warping skills because I would sorely disappoint and I had no desire to see people die on account of that.
Link looked less than impressed, but nevertheless proceeded past us unquestioningly, clattering out of the shaft and into a tiny corridor that twisted away around a sharp corner. Most definitely servants' passages. He passed through the door directly before us and snuffled triumphantly at the new hall, the grandest yet, fitted out with what had to be the last intact tapestries depicting familiar patterns. To our left stood an archway that led to a stripped lounge, and to our right towered a pair of double doors, gilded with the same crying stylised eye as the one on the tapestries and Midna's headdress. We collectively paused to take it all in, even Midna, the three of us shoulder to shoulder.
Link twisted around in the sudden silence and looked hard at me, and I almost thought he was going to say something – but he just looked at me, looked at the door, and paled a little. He'd told me that the stutter was a recent acquisition, that they'd realized only after his rescue. The emotional trauma of Ilia's death had given Ren his; I could hardly begin to imagine what rattled this overwhelmingly courageous, resilient fighter.
"I've got your back," I said unthinkingly. Quiet electricity ran between us, the three of us, as Midna descended and rested a hand on his shoulder. I could tell he wanted desperately to shake it off, but he didn't. He just stood there, looking tired and nearly scared. I couldn't take it, and judging by the strain filtering in from Zelda, neither could she. "We can do this. It's three on one. No contest. I mean, just look at us. That ugly bastard has no chance."
He shook his head, a half-smile tugging at his mouth but it vanished within a few seconds. I know we can. His jaw dropped the slightest bit as if he wanted to say something else. But he drew his sword instead and reached for one of the handles, head tilted as a cue for me to grab the other. The doors swung inwards soundlessly. Sharing a glance, he clasped my shoulder, hard, let out a hard sigh, and entered the darkness of the throne room. I could never respect anyone more than Link in that moment.