Chapter Two: Midna
There was a blurry blue and green mass above Link, and he blinked in confusion at it. He felt a bit cold, and his head hurt. The strangeness faded a bit, and then he realized that he was looking up at the blue of the sky that was fringed by trees, and he was laying on his back in shallow water. Then everything crystallized in his mind and he gasped, remembering the green monsters that had come and attacked them.
He groggily sat up and felt his head swim, and a wave of nausea hit him. His clothes and hair were soaked, and when he looked at his fingers he saw that they were wrinkled from sitting in the water. How long was he laying there? He gingerly felt at the back of his head, but there was no bump, no split skin, nothing. Link could have sworn he had felt his own skull crack from the impact, a shattering, crunching noise heard in his ears from the inside of his head. While his head certainly did hurt, it did not feel like he broke his skull. He probably wouldn't be alive if if that was the case.
Link slowly stood, looking around the spring for any sign of the others that had been here when everything went black. There was an arrow stuck in the ground at the edge of the water, Ilia's sandals, and the brush she had dropped. Scattered footprints from the humans and the boars were everywhere. It really did happen; he had hoped that he hit his head in some other way and had imagined it. He took a few steps and saw scattered drops of something dark on a rock not too far from the water's edge. His eyes widened when he realized what it was.
Ilia's blood. The rage that had taken him over returned, and he found himself running from the spring, sandaled feet pounding on the dirt trail. He rounded the turn to run north on the main road, and continued on over the bridge where he had stopped with Rusl the evening before. He didn't know where he was going, just north to Faron. North being where they had likely come from, and probably where they had returned to. Link panted as he ran, not knowing how long he did so, only knowing that he was incredibly angry and that his head ached.
His anger-blind run brought him to a wall in the middle of the road that ran north through the shade of Faron Woods. It was amber and brown, and spanned across the road and into the woods on either side. He realized that it was not solid. It undulated gently as if it was liquid hovering in the air. Breathing heavily from his run, he reached out to touch it, at the strange symbols that dotted its rippling umber surface. Then something erupted from the wall and grabbed onto him, pulling him through.
It held onto him with a massive hand, its long fingers wrapping around his neck in a strong grip, and he struggled to breathe. He looked at the creature and saw that it was large and black, with scaled skin almost like tree bark and thin waving tentacles that sprouted from its head in place of hair. It had a hunched body and lanky limbs, and wore a solid stone mask that it could somehow see through. It was staring at him, he was sure of it. He clutched at the monster's hand to try to free himself, but he was weak from being injured and running all the way here. Link could see his arms as he struggled, and he saw that the same leathery pattern of black scales on the beast started to spread down his shoulders and biceps, towards his elbows.
The triangles on his left hand suddenly came to life, glowing a brilliant gold. The black creature shrieked in either pain or fear, and dropped him to flee. He pushed himself up on his hands and knees, and looked at the golden triangles that had lit up on his skin, but then suddenly felt a wave of agony throughout his entire body. He shuddered, grunting in pain as another hit him. The monster had done something to him, and he felt like he was changing into something else. He cried out, clutching at the ground with his fingers as his body felt like it was being stretched painfully, his muscles and bones being pulled into directions they were not meant to be. The agony turned white-hot and he felt as if he was dying. He screamed and the sound changed into a deep inhuman growl, and then he collapsed, weakened.
Link tried to open his eyes but couldn't, and he slipped into blackness again. He had moments where he was briefly aware: something was holding his leg and dragging him. Something else was carrying him. There was a cold stone floor. He had been brought somewhere, but he didn't know where. Nothing made sense as he slipped in and out of consciousness.
After some time had passed, he opened his eyes. He was laying on his side on a stone floor, facing a stone wall. He felt very thirsty and a bit hungry, and his head still ached as he looked around the cold room he was in. The light was strange, dark yet luminescent, amber and gold with hints of purple at the edges of his vision, almost like the sunset he had seen the night before. A chain was fastened to a thick iron ring set into the floor, and it snaked its way up to his body. He looked down to see if he was attached to it, and stared in disbelief.
The shackle that was around his left wrist was not his wrist. It was the ankle of a gray beast.
His heart fluttered in panic. The monster had turned him into something. At first he thought it was trying to turn him into something like itself, a great hulking black beast with a stone mask. This wasn't the case, as he had a pair of paws that ended in black claws that reminded him of a dog's. He slowly stood with a clinking sound, and realized that he could see his nose. It was not a nose, but a long dark snout. What was he? Was he a dog?
He tilted his head down to examine his belly and didn't see the sleek coat of a domesticated dog, but instead saw the shaggy coat of a wolf. Link turned his head to look at his side, and saw that he wasn't only gray. Of all the colors he could be, his thick coat was a dark green. He moved his tail to get a look at it better, and it indeed looked like the tail of a wolf, heavily furred and green.
He had moved his tail. He wasn't supposed to have a tail.
Link slowly sank to the floor, horrified of what he had become. He was supposed to stop the green monsters from taking Ilia and Colin. She was injured and she needed his help, and his heart ached at the thought of her being carried off while wounded. He could do nothing, though. He was now a beast, chained to the floor of some kind of cell, abandoned and alone. Tears formed in his eyes and he began to weep, but the sounds of his sobs were distorted, wrong. He couldn't even cry properly with the mouth and vocal cords of a wolf, and it made him cry even harder.
"Pathetic." said a small voice. He raised his head to look around, tears soaking into the fur of his face. "A wolf crying with the voice of a human. Or perhaps a human crying with the voice of a wolf?" The owner of the voice was behind him, and he tilted his ears back to listen before standing up to face the speaker.
The fourth wall of his prison cell was bars, bars that were far too narrow for him to squeeze through, and the barred gate in the middle of them was closed and most likely locked. On the other side of the bars was a creature the size of a toddler with an over-sized head, hovering about two feet above the ground. Its skin was light gray with patches of inky black on its body, a body that was vaguely feminine in shape with wider hips and small breasts. He realized that this thing was female. Angular runes of glowing aqua covered her limbs and her sides like tattoos. She was wearing some kind of stone helmet that covered one of her red-on-yellow eyes, and a ponytail of orange hair sprouted out of the top of the helm. When she saw him looking at her one visible eye, she grinned widely, almost madly. There were sharp fangs in her mouth.
He opened his mouth and started to speak, but it came out as a bunch of odd canine sounds and whines. The mouth of a wolf was too different, too wrong to form human speech. The creature on the other side of the bars laughed at him, putting a small hand to her mouth as she did so. He could see that there were pointed black thorns jutting out from her forearms.
"Doubly pathetic." she said. Her voice was higher pitched, as one would expect from a smaller creature. "Trying to talk while you're in that state. Did you really think you'd be able to?"
Link sighed, not sure what to do. He couldn't speak, even though there was someone outside of his prison cell to speak to. How was he supposed to communicate with this...thing? This little spiky imp that grinned at him while hovering in the air?
She continued to grin at him and floated towards the bars. Instead of coming into contact with them, she briefly dissolved into a wiggling mass of shadowy orbs that reformed her body once she had passed through. Link couldn't tell if her behavior was aggressive or not, or if she was with the black beast that threw him in here. She looked somewhat similar, partially black with a strange stone helmet that had patterns on it similar to the mask. A low growl formed in his throat as wolfish instinct took over.
"Oooh!" She put her tiny hands to the sides of her face. "Aren't you scary!" The little imp reached out to pat him on the nose, and without thinking about what he was doing he snapped his jaws at her. She darted back a bit and giggled, a feminine, human-sounding noise. "Do you really think you should be doing that? Snarling and biting like a brute? And here I thought I might help you. I don't help bad dogs, though."
This little creature was infuriating. She had done nothing but mocked him and laughed, and Link wanted nothing to do with her. At the same time, she was offering to help him out. He was still chained to the floor of a prison, so he was in no state to be choosy. He sat down on his haunches and lay his tail flat on the floor in a manner he hoped didn't look aggressive, and looked at her.
"That's much better. Such an obedient human, aren't you? Just like the rest of your kind." She narrowed her one eye and grinned her fanged grin. "Oopsie. You aren't a human anymore, are you?" The creature looked at the chain and shackle, and tapped at her chin. "Let's see...what would work here? Hm, yes." She held her hands together in front of her chest, palms slightly apart, and a crackling ball of amber and black energy formed there. She threw it as one might throw a stone at the chain, and it snapped a few links down from the shackle.
He looked at his now free leg and lifted his paw. The shackle was still on him, but he wasn't attached to the floor anymore. He would worry about the shackle later.
"You don't need to be so surprised. It's just a little spell!" She misinterpreted his body language, thinking that he had never seen magic before. He not only knew what it was, but he thought he was able to recognize it as shadow magic as well. There was no way of him telling her this, though.
"Now that I've done that, I want you to do something for yourself, little wolf." She dissolved into the swirling black orbs again and moved back to the outside of the bars. "There is most likely a way out of that cell. If you have any brains, you might find it. See if you can get out." She extended the orange hair towards him and formed something that looked like a hand at the end of it, making a beckoning motion with the odd appendage. "Try to get to me."
He looked around the chilly cell and didn't see much that was helpful: a few manacles on the wall, the chain that had held him down, a hole in the corner that smelled like it was connected to a sewer. Next to the wall near the bars was an uneven group of stones, as if something had moved them. He looked at them and realized that they were stacked in a way to resemble the stone floor, but it wasn't done perfectly. After pushing a few of them with his nose, he could see that there was a dirty blanket beneath. He grabbed it with his teeth, wrinkling his nose at the taste of the disgusting thing in his mouth, and tugged. He found that he was quite strong, probably stronger than he was as a human, and he pulled the blanket back stones and all. A partially dug hole that extended under the stone wall was there, hidden behind the blanket and stones. It wasn't very large, and he likely could have squeezed his way out of it in his human form, but his body was a completely different shape now. He tried and found that his rib cage was too big, and he heard the little creature giggling at him.
Fine. If he was a dog, he'd act like a dog. Link dug with his front paws at the dirt that the cell's previous occupant had already started digging at. His claws were far more effective at loosening and moving the earth than his hands would have been. He could still hear the imp laughing in delight at his behavior.
"Yes, dig like the dog you are." she giggled. He ignored her, even though she was grating on his nerves. He needed to control his temper if he was going to get out of this place.
Soon he had moved enough of the dirt away to wiggle his body through and into the next cell over. He shook himself off, spraying dust from his coat, and looked around. The barred door in this cell was slightly ajar, so he pushed it open and walked out and stopped to look at the creature. She clapped her hands excitedly.
"Yes, good dog! Very good!" She laughed and formed into the dark orbs, shooting towards him suddenly and behind him. He then felt her on his back, riding him like a horse. This time it was hard for him to keep his temper and he growled, spinning this way and that while snapping his jaws. He felt two small hands grip his ears and she hauled them back a bit painfully. "Now don't be like that, I helped you, didn't I? It's only fair that you help me now." He sighed and relaxed, and she released his ears. "Good boy. The first thing I want to do is get out of here. I'm sure that's what you want too, isn't it? Now, giddiyup! Let's get going!" She kicked her little heels into his sides, and he grumbled indignantly. He hated this little thing, but he needed her. May as well do what she wanted for now.
Link looked around the prison, but saw no one else there. It was completely silent. He padded down the rows of cells, peering into each of them through the bars. Did they bring Colin and Ilia to this place? His little passenger snickered. "I don't know who or what you're looking for, but you won't find it here. They stuck you in this hole by yourself." He had no choice but to believe her, and turned to walk to the other end of the jail.
There was a guard post near the open door with a table and chair, a lamp, and a bucket of water with a dipping spoon. He was terribly thirsty, and was feeling a bit weak due to it. Link leaned over the bucket and stuck out his tongue, and would have frowned if he had the right facial muscles to do so. How did wolves drink with their tongue, anyway? He didn't want to even try, so he held his breath and stuck his muzzle in the water to suck it down like a horse. The creature on his back giggled in her infuriating way, but he was so thirsty that she could keep laughing for all he cared. He lifted his wet face from the bucket and sneezed the water out of his nostrils a few times. Even his sneeze didn't sound like his own.
After stepping out into the hall, he could see that it was lit by torches, and there was more stone walls. Was this a dungeon in a castle or a keep? The torches crackled and flickered like fire should, but it seemed dim somehow, the normally golden color pale and weak. Was this how a wolf saw things, with very little color? Or was it due to the odd amber lighting? Ever so faintly he could see motes of something like dust in the flames, as if something was suspended in the air. Perhaps that dust was what caused the strange light, although he didn't feel as if he was inhaling dust.
"You'll want to go right here." The imp instructed him from atop his back. For once, a straightforward instruction without any mockery or laughter. He turned right and trotted along, his claws clicking on the cold stone floor. The passage turned once, and then ended at a shut door. He started at it, wondering how he could possibly open it without fingers or thumbs, but then the little gray creature formed that strange hand out of her hair again and turned the knob, pushing it open. Well, that was useful. At least she could open doors when he couldn't.
The next room was a tower with a long spiraling staircase. A pair of little glowing flames huddled near the bottom of the stairs, the two of them throwing off a sickly green color. He walked over to them, curious.
"Oh yes, what are those? You're wondering that, aren't you? Go ahead, listen to them. Maybe you'll hear something interesting." It was an odd suggestion, but nothing in this place seemed normal. Link walked up to the two flickering green flames and could hear voices.
"Are we safe here?" said one, a male voice.
"I don't know, but if I have to hide in the dungeons then so be it." said a second male voice, this one tinged with terror. "I'd rather hide in a hole than be transformed."
Transformed? Like he was? Were these little flames people? He didn't understand why people would be turned into flames, but then again he didn't understand why he was turned into a wolf of all things. Nothing was as it seemed here. He moved past the glowing flames and started up the staircase.
It was hard for him to tell how many floors up the spiral stairs went, but eventually he came to a door at the top that the little creature opened with her hair, and he stepped out onto a stone walkway with parapets on either side. It was cold out here much how it was in the dungeon, although not cold enough for him to see his breath steam in the air. Huddled in the corner near the door was one of the flames, and it was gibbering in terror.
"Oh gods, no. Please no. Now the doors are opening on their own. Hylia, save me!" another male voice said, almost sobbing in fright. The speaker of the voice had seen the door open, but somehow hadn't seen him. Were all these things men? He mentioned Hylia...so he was in Hyrule somewhere.
He put his paws up on the parapet to look around, and saw turrets and towers and stone halls, all looking pale and washed out in the strange amber-colored air. The air itself had something slowly tumbling from the sky here and there, dark flakes of crystal that fell like a black snow. They didn't blanket anything, and when they got close to the ground they vanished in a blink of black squares. What was that? Was that the motes of dust he saw inside? Was it snowing evil magic or something?
Link stopped looking at whatever it was falling from the sky, and took in more of the stone building he was standing on. There was a tall stone wall surrounding everything, and grassy lawns between the wall and the connected buildings. It was a castle. Was this Hyrule Castle? This was where he was supposed to have gone, but not like this. At least he knew where he was now.
He continued on across the walkway to the door on the other side, but the little creature didn't open it. "Not so fast, wolfie. We shouldn't go that way. I think we should head in that direction, to that tower." She pointed with her strange orange hair, forming a hand on the end of it. "You're a bright boy, aren't you? Why don't you figure out how to get up there?"
Link put his paws up on the stone railing next to the walkway again to try to take another look. There was a peaked black roof that extended next to the walkway he was on, and it connected to a square building that was flat on top. Beyond that was another black-roofed building, and past that the tall tower. Why did they have to go to the tower, anyway? That wasn't the way out. They needed to go down through the castle, not up in some outlying tower. He sighed and jumped up with his hind legs, climbing over the parapet and jumping onto the black sloped roof.
His claws dug in to the slate shingles, but it was still hard to stay on. Link managed to claw and scrabble his way up to the peak, which wasn't a peak at all but flat on top. The flat part was far easier to walk on, so he moved along and jumped from the edge of the roof to the square building nearby, and then from that to the next black peaked roof. He stopped and looked over his shoulder, and saw that he was moving away from the main part of the castle, the taller spires and towers extending far higher until they met at a central pointed peak. This tower the small creature directed him towards was on the edge of things. Maybe it did go down to someplace useful after all.
He reached the edge of the roof and saw that the tower was several feet away, not connected like he initially thought. Looking down he could see a stone path, and two of the strange black beasts with the masks were patrolling along that path, oblivious to his presence. Perhaps that's why she wanted him to go to the tower, if those black monsters were on the castle grounds. He estimated that it was at least three floors down. Link wasn't afraid of heights, but looking straight down from a roof's edge was a bit dizzying. He raised his eyes back up to the nearby tower, and saw that one of the windows was missing its glass and most of its lead frame, like something had been pushed out of it at some point. Or perhaps something jumped. There was a decently wide ledge that ran around the circumference of the tower, dotted by rainspout gargoyles at regular intervals.
Link paced back and forth, sizing up the ledge while considering what his next action would be. He was stronger than he was as a human, with a much better body for things like running and jumping. The creature on his back seemed to understand what he was thinking of doing, and her normally sardonic tone sounded a bit alarmed. "What are you planning? You're a wolf, not a cat."
He ignored her and went back a ways on the rooftop, and then turned to face the tower. It wasn't his brightest idea, sure...but he didn't really have any others. He took off running and leaped from the edge of the roof, pushing off with his strong lupine muscles. Link landed on the ledge on the tower, smacking into the stones of the tower itself, since he had overestimated how far he could jump. He grunted in pain from the impact and then lay his ears flat, not liking how his voice sounded nothing like his normal one.
"I suppose that worked. All right then, carry on." She patted his back.
He circled around, stepping over the square gargoyles and made his way into the window. He was about to jump down onto the stairs that spiraled around a central pillar, when his keen ears heard a sound coming from above. He went back out onto the ledge and listened carefully, and waited until the shuffling footsteps passed. Jumping back up on the wide windowsill, he looked down the stairs and saw one of the black monsters patrolling its way down and around the curve.
"Well that's inconvenient." The imp on his back said quietly, near his ear. "We can't go down the stairs right now. Why don't we go up? There's somebody up there I'd love for you to meet."
Somebody else? What, another strange little creature like her? Would it have a clever mouth too? Still, Link had no other option at the moment, so he jumped and landed lightly on the stairs and made his way up. The stairs ended at an iron-studded oak double door. His creature companion opened this door for him, and he pushed his way inside.
The room beyond was only slightly warmer than out in the tower. A fire burned in a fireplace along the left wall, but like the fire he saw elsewhere it was feeble and only offered a bit of warmth. The room had a blue and black carpet on the stone floor, and simple furniture: a four-poster bed, a desk with a chair, a small bookshelf, and a folding door on the wall that was likely a privy. It was austere, providing the basics. It was a prison, even though it had more amenities than Link's cell had.
There was a person standing at the large curved window that overlooked what was presumably Castle Town, facing away with their back to him. They were wrapped in a dark cloak, likely to ward off the chill in the room. They moved slightly when they heard Link's claws click on the stone floor, and then turned. The person in the cloak had the lower part of their face muffled in a wool scarf, but above the scarf was a pair of blue eyes with thin arched brows. A woman, or so Link believed. It could have been a trick of the strange amber light, but her skin almost looked like it faintly glowed golden.
"What? A wolf?" the voice was youthful, and the woman took a few steps forward. It was as if she wasn't afraid of him. Wasn't he a beast? "Midna? Is that you?"
"Oh, you remember me!" the creature now known as Midna said, still seated on Link's back. "I'm honored."
The young woman came forward to kneel down in front of Link and look at him. "Your eyes are not the eyes of a beast. You're human, aren't you?" He nodded, the only way he could answer. She had realized that he used to be human, which explained why she wasn't afraid of him. "I thought so. Midna is this the one you were looking for?"
"I guess. I admit, he isn't exactly what I had in mind, but he'll do." Midna said.
The cloaked woman stood and crossed the room to shut the door. He could see a glimpse of a white dress and soft leather boots beneath the cloak as she went past. She then came back and stood in front of him. Her blue eyes were beautiful, but it was the only feature of her face he could see.
"So how are you faring in your prison, Zelda? The Twilight Princess..." Midna asked in a mocking tone.
Zelda? Princess Zelda? A member of the royal family, the daughter of the current mad king. Was she responsible for what happened in Ordon, and then here? An involuntary growl rose from Link's throat, the fur on his neck and shoulders standing up. Zelda looked at him, unafraid.
"I know you're upset, and things might seem quite strange, but please let me explain." He stopped growling and sighed, nodding. It wouldn't do him any good to be nasty, even if he was angry about what happened. "Please, let's sit by the fire. I'll explain things as best as I can." She moved over to sit, folding her legs next to her on the blue rug. Link came and lay down, crossing his gray paws in front of him. The manacle on his ankle clinked slightly as he settled.
Zelda reached out and gently touched the metal shackle, then looked him in the eye. "You were imprisoned?" When Link nodded again, she shut her eyes and let out a soft sigh. "I must apologize. I can't control what is happening." She opened her blue eyes. "Where you are right now is Hyrule Castle, or it was. Now it has been covered in a magical field known as Twilight and is a shadow of what it once was. Despite the Gerudo War being centuries ago, and despite the years of unrest due to the eradication of magic users, an army of magic has invaded us once again.
"At first the raids by the monsters were obnoxious, but manageable by the army. They came from the west, from the desert, or perhaps beyond it. Not long after, the Twilight itself expanded from the desert and started covering the land. My father thought it was the work of the Gerudo, but I doubt that." Zelda shook her head. "These monsters are nothing like the Gerudo. They have the disturbing ability to turn those they touch into creatures of darkness just like them."
That was what happened to him, he realized. He saw that his skin had become like that of the creature that was attacking him. Then why was he a wolf instead?
"They ignored the town and went straight for the castle, coming from portals that appeared in the sky. We stood up to them. My father and his knights fought outside the castle, but they were all killed." The king was dead? Did that mean Zelda was in charge now? Yet she said she said she can't control what's happening. "I managed to use my golden power to hold back the Twilight from the castle and Castle Town, but they came anyway. They don't need the Twilight to attack."
She turned to stare into the fire, her blue eyes regretful. She felt guilty, Link realized. "I was inside with my own troops, waiting with my sword to fight alongside them. If I had to fight to protect the people, so be it. The leader of the invaders, who wore a lizard mask, approached me and asked if I wanted the royal line to end here and now. He asked me if he wanted my people to suffer the same fate, and then threatened to kill them one by one in front of me while keeping me alive." Zelda grew quiet for a moment before continuing in a low voice. "The Shadow Beasts killed half my men. The man in the lizard mask did it to make a point."
Link listened, trying to push down his hatred of Zelda and her father. At least the king was dead, but Zelda was here in front of him, and she had the audacity to show emotion and act human. The royal family wasn't human, they were monsters. She couldn't be somebody who cared for her people, not when the king and queen certainly didn't. A princess who actually cared would have found a way to stop or dispose of her mad father.
"Their leader made me an offer: if I surrendered, neither I or the people would be harmed. Instead Twilight would blanket the land, turning the people who live in Hyrule into spirits." Was that what the glowing green flames were? "I had no choice. I couldn't let him slaughter my people. Now the lands of the Hylians are covered in Twilight, and I presume that the lands of the Zora and Gorons are as well."
"The Twilight isn't so bad, you know." Midna said, still sitting on his back. She seemed to be quite comfortable up there. "It's actually quite lovely when you get used to it."
Zelda shook her head. "Midna…" She looked at the creature. "Are the Shadow Beasts still after you? Why is that?"
The imp sitting on his back hesitated before answering. "Why indeed?" She didn't want to say.
She looked back at Link and continued. "I know I had little choice, but I still hate the decision I made. The people of Hyrule now live in fear of the Shadow Beasts and Bulbins that roam the land." Bulbins? Was that what those green brutes that attacked them at the spring were? "I encountered Midna not too long after the man who invaded us left, and realized that she was an ally. I tried to help her find a powerful relic belonging to her people. I had hoped that Midna could become strong enough to fight off the invaders, since she uses the same kind of magic as they do, and can't be affected by it. Unfortunately, we were found out. I managed to help Midna escape, but wound up imprisoned in this tower. Now the only ones I see anymore are the guards who bring me food twice a day."
She leaned closer to look him in the eyes. "But you're different. I wasn't transformed due to a power I hold, and I suspect that you are the same. You were transformed into a wolf instead of a Shadow Beast due to your own hidden power." Zelda sighed sadly. "I want to tell you more about it, but they will be bringing my breakfast soon. You can't be caught here with me." She stood, smoothing out her dress and cloak.
"Blue-eyed wolf, please help Midna." Zelda said. "Despite her appearance, she and her magic are important and are the key to returning light to Hyrule. As a last resort, we must fight shadow with shadow."
He looked at her, and then nodded. What else could he do? At least if he helped Midna, he might learn about this power she mentioned. Maybe it could turn him back into a human.
"I'm sorry you can't talk. I hope you go back to being human soon. Maybe then we can speak at length about everything that's happened." Zelda crossed the room and opened the door. "Hurry, before the Shadow Beast returns."
Link stood up and walked to the door. He looked up at Zelda, wishing he could speak. The anger he had towards her had faded, and now he simply had questions that couldn't be answered. Zelda looked past him and at the creature on his back. "Midna, aid him just as much as he aids you. The two of you need to work together."
"You're not my princess." Midna said, sounding a bit irritated. It seemed rather ungrateful, after Zelda had mentioned that she had helped Midna. "I'll do what I need to do."
"Please, Midna." Zelda implored. She looked at Link again. "Now go."
There was nothing else to do but leave. Link walked down the stairs, and could hear the sounds of the Shadow Beast starting its way back up. With no alternative, he jumped up to the broken window again, and quickly made his way back to the ledge outside. He circled around until he was on the side of the tower adjacent to the roof that he had jumped off before. The only problem is that he had a running start when had done so, and now there wasn't room for him to do that.
"What, are you afraid you won't make that jump? You got here before, so you can get back the other way." Easy for her to say: she could fly. He gathered himself up, bunching into a crouch and launched his body into the air and at the roof. Link landed roughly on the stone tiles of the roof, only his top half making the jump, and he scrabbled with his front claws, kicking the air helplessly with his back feet. The roof stuck out enough that he couldn't reach the outer wall of the building to kick off of and push himself up, and he didn't have the fingers to grab onto the black slate roof either.
"Do I have to do everything?" Midna sighed, and she floated up and off his back to come next to him. The creature reached out with her orange hair and wrapped it around his middle. She picked him up and gently set him down on the flat part of the roof, then withdrew the strange prehensile hair. Why didn't she do that before? He wouldn't have had to jump. Link grumbled to himself in the strange groans of a wolf.
"Oh, stop your complaining. You should be thinking of what's important." She said, moving to hover in front of him. Midna grinned her fanged smile. "You do know what I mean, don't you?" She giggled, and then shimmered as she changed into Colin, crying out in his voice. Then she turned into Ilia, mimicking her scream. The sound made Link begin to growl, the anger rising again. Midna changed back into her regular imp form, or perhaps she had never transformed at all. Shadow magic was mostly illusions and trickery. The fact that she was able to do other things with it was unusual.
"Do you want to help your friends?" she asked. He hadn't forgotten about Ilia and Colin, but didn't know what he could do about them. If Midna had used her magic to mimic the two of them, did that mean that she was watching what happened at the spring? Did she follow him all the way here, to Hyrule Castle?
Midna was supposed to help him, so maybe she could help him rescue them from the Bublins. Without thinking, Link opened his mouth and tried to speak, but then stopped after more lupine noises came out. She laughed at him, but in a far less mocking manner. "We'll have to work on those communication skills, wolfie. We'll have to figure some way for you to speak, if you're going to be my servant."
Link growled again, not keen on the idea of her thinking that he was going to be her slave. If Zelda said they needed to work together, then they were equals. "Now, now...don't get cranky about it." Midna chided. "If you want to save them, you need to help me. Zelda said we needed to work together, so we'll start with you helping me. After all, I already did free you."
Link stopped growling, feeling a little guilty for getting angry again. She was right, and he nodded in response to her. That much was true, she did help him already. He opened his mouth and carefully formed a word. "Rresss." The voice of his wolf form was deeper and nothing like his own.
Midna put a small hand to her mouth to cover a smile. "Oh, was that a word? Did you just say 'yes'?"
"Ress." he said, more clearly. He couldn't get the Y sound with his current mouth, but at least she understood him.
The imp giggled. "That's cute. If that's a yes, then say 'no'."
Link grunted, feeling a bit foolish, and then opened his mouth again. "Noo." It almost sounded human, and was far easier to say. He got the feeling that he'd be telling Midna "no" quite a bit, if the past hour with her was any indication.
"Well then, that works rather nicely, wouldn't you say?" she said, pleased. "I don't know how much more you can learn to say with that doggy mouth of yours, but it's a start. And speaking of a start…" she tapped at her cheek with one finger. "I believe we ought to go back where this all began for you, at that spring before you entered the Twilight. That would be the best place for us to go, if you're looking for your friends. I'm looking for something in that area as well." She had seen him get attacked after all, since she knew that he was at the spring, and then later ran into the Twilight in Faron. He wanted to ask her what she was doing there, but it would have to wait with his limited two-word vocabulary.
Link looked down the sloped roof, wondering how they would get down. They had to escape Hyrule Castle, and then get through Castle Town in order to run south to Ordon. How fast could wolves run? It would likely take days.
Midna watched him as he attempted to find a way down to the ground, and rolled her red eye. "We won't go that way. I know of a better way that will make the trip far easier. At least, I'm pretty sure it'll work. Let's see if it does?"
He turned his wolf head towards her, unsure of what she was going to do, and then suddenly the world around him started to dissolve. It was like watching loose flakes of paint being blown away from a worn wooden door. Everything turned into squares, spiraling up above until the scene of Hyrule Castle was gone, replaced with inky blackness. Then the effect happened in reverse, a verdant scene assembling out of squares, becoming something solid and real. He was now standing at the spirit's spring in Ordon, the transition between the two places jarring. The chill of the Twilight had faded, and now he was standing in the hot humidity of the Ordonian summer. It actually looked earlier than it was the last time he was here, judging from where the sun was. Did he lose almost an entire day?
Link felt dizzy, and lowered his head, grunting. Whatever she had done to bring them here, it made him feel as if he had been spun around. He had no idea shadow magic could be used to send somebody from one place to another hundreds of miles away. Perhaps shadow magic was different for whatever kind of creature Midna was, versus how it was for Hylians and Sheikah. He shut his eyes, willing his spinning head to stop.
"You're looking a little green." Midna laughed from nearby. "Then again, you always looked a little green, didn't you?"
He opened his eyes and scanned the nearby forest for her, but had difficulty seeing where she was. It was then he could spot her yellow and red eye standing out in the shadows of the trees, and then he was able to see the vague outline of the imp's body. Strange, why was she doing that? Did she have a different form when she was out of the Twilight?
"Well, get to it. Let's see where they took your friends. If my suspicions are correct, it's in the same direction as the thing I'm searching for." She waved a shadowy hand at him, directing him to search.
Link looked around at the scattered tracks, and found the hole in the wet silt at the edge of the spring where the arrow had embedded itself in the ground. There were a few new tracks that were over the old ones, human ones. He could still see his own tracks heading out from the spring and down the road, though. There was no sign of Ilia's shoes, or the brush she had dropped.
"What are you doing?" He looked at her ghostly form floating beneath the trees. "You're not a man anymore, so why are you just using your eyes? Try searching like a wolf would."
Oh. She did have a point. He wasn't exactly thinking like a wolf, but maybe he should. This body of his could be useful, if he knew how to use it. Feeling a bit foolish, he lowered his snout to the ground and sniffed at his own footprint. It was strange, but he could smell and recognize multiple things at once: his home, the barn, the dust of the Ordon roads, and something that was probably his own unique human scent. He moved forward to one of the newer human tracks and sniffed at it. Fado. He wasn't sure how he knew that, not really thinking about how his friend smelled before, but he knew. He moved along, running his lupine nose along the dirt and rocks that surrounded the water. Boar. Bulbin. Ilia. That last one tugged at his heart, at the smell that he was familiar with in human form.
His nose came across the drops of blood, and Ilia's scent bloomed with new information: the metal of the arrow, her sweat as she ran, pain, fear, and something faint: he couldn't think of exactly what it was, but it brought to mind attraction. Physical attraction. She had looked at him with some kind of warmth in her eyes before the Bulbins burst in. Was that how she was feeling? Was he correct, in his assumption that she felt the same way about him as he did about her? They had a chance to tell one another the previous night, but never did. She wanted to talk to it about it today, and never did. And now she was gone.
Link raised his muzzle and howled in grief and loss, his wolf instincts still controlling his body as he had no other way to vent how he was feeling. He lowered his face and felt his eyes burn with tears, the human mind in his beast body taking back over. A bright light tugged at his attention, far brighter than the morning sunlight streaming through the trees. Link lifted his head to look, and saw that the swirling lines carved into the oval-shaped rocks of the spirit's spring had lit up, illuminating the clearing around the spring. The water on the top level of the tiered waterfalls rippled gently, and began to glow softly from somewhere below the surface.
"Blue-eyed beast…" said a soft, deep voice that was neither male nor female. "...your grief has awakened me."
He stared at the glowing lights, his grief for Ilia momentarily forgotten. This was the spirit that dwelled in the spring, the one that people had prayed to but never saw. It existed. He was wrong, there was magic in Ordon, and it was right in front of him all the while. Now it was speaking to him.
"Beware." said the voice of the spirit. "A being of shadow approaches."