Midna woke up with a massive headache. She groaned and pressed her hands to her forehead as she rolled onto her back. The sky was an admittedly-pleasant shade of dark blue with burnt orange clouds but Midna had no patience for that. She sat up, hissing at the twinge in her back from sleeping on the ground, and sighed.

Zach was still unconscious. His face was flushed and his body stank of poison and sweat, but he was still breathing. Good enough.

"So much for you, 'hero'," Midna grumbled. "You went and got yourself nearly killed, like I said you would!"

Zach did not respond, being unconscious.

Midna sighed again. "Of course, you're only a light dweller. I suppose my expectations were too high, even for the 'Sacred Beast'." She reached over and flicked a lock of Zach's hair off his face. For a moment, just a moment, she felt pity for him. He had been injured to the point of near-death just getting the first—technically second—Fused Shadow. But that was his job, was it not? It was his duty to risk life and limb, and it was Midna's duty to reap the benefits. Everyone wins!

Well, everyone except Zach but again, that was his job. If he did not like it, too bad.

"What am I going to do with you?" she asked as she dabbed Zach's forehead with a damp cloth. "I suppose I could take you back to the spring, but then I'd have no shade with which I can enjoy this incredibly frustrating delay." Her stomach grumbled. "But then again, there would be food there."

Midna pulled her knees in and rested her chin on them. "If I just had one bit of fruit or cheese with some bread..."

Plop!

Midna squeaked when an apple landed right beside her. It was green instead of red but looked no less delicious. She looked up and found the friendly monkeys in the trees above. They hooted and chirped in their cute monkey language as she picked up the apple.

"Thank you!" She took one bite and then her hair shot straight up. Her taste buds ignited as the acidity of the apple soaked into her tongue. "SOUR!" She nearly spat the bite out, only remembering at the last moment that it was all the food she had. With a whimper, she gulped and washed her mouth out with some water from the pond.

After having a giant evil plant sitting in it, Midna half-expected the pond to retain some poison. Thankfully, the water was clean and pure as she cupped some in her hand and drank slowly. It was like the Fused Shadow was never there at all.

"I bet that pleases the light spirits," Midna muttered as she returned to her spot near Zach. "Scared of such a silly thing as the Fused Shadow... okay, I take that back. Diababa was definitely something to worry about. But did those light spirits do anything? No, they got some fool to do their dirty work!"

Midna took her time with the apple due to the tartness and her own thoughts stewing about in her head. She needed a bath; her skin stuck to itself in awkward places from all the sweat and grime accumulated during the battle. Zach needed one too; he had to be getting a rash from the poisons soaking into his skin.

Midna blanched at the thought. The Twilight Princess herself bathing a light dweller! This world truly has gone mad if it expected her to do that. She did more than her fair share helping him through the marsh and in the heat of battle. He helped her as well, as befitting his self-appointed title of Hero of Twilight.

'Hero of Twilight', ha! If either of them was the Hero of Twilight, it was Midna! She was from the Twilight Realm, after all. Where was her grand induction? Where was her 'hero' outfit? Nowhere to be found. Once she was back to her true self, she would remedy both. Her parents would be so proud of her to have made it through such hardships...

But would they tolerate her treatment of the Sacred Beast?

With a weary groan, Midna tossed the remainder of her apple away and took to the skies. Her shadow form kept her safe from the harsh light as she flitted between tree branches and thickets, and before long she found the healing spring of Faron.

She shook her head on her way past the spring to the bathhouse. That weird guy sat near an unlit fire pit. Midna glared daggers at the woman standing over him.

"I told you to go back to Kakariko," the woman said. "I told you and told you and what happened? We got stuck here! UGH!"

The guy—Coro, if Midna bothered to care—rubbed the back of his neck. "C'mon, Iza. How was I supposed to know there'd be monsters everywhere?"

"Me being attacked by one didn't tip you off?"

Midna rolled her eyes. How long was this crazy woman going to milk that story? Midna did nothing to her! At first, she had planned to take that water bucket in the bathhouse but just for fun, Midna decided to treat herself yet again to a nice relaxing bath.

On second thought, she would have to retreat if Iza chose violence again. In the interest of preserving her fingers, Midna took the water bucket and an assortment of lovely-smelling bottles. She was about to dump the water down the wash basin when she had another idea.

"I hope she comes back," Iza continued. "I'll give that little monster a lesson she won't—EEK!" She squawked as cold water ran down her hair and over her body, chilling her to the bone.

Midna let herself have a good laugh on her way to the spring. She dunked the now-empty bucket into the water, and once it was halfway full, she headed back to the grove.

The grove was nice and sheltered from the light in the sky, so Midna worried not for getting burned. She dipped a rag into the water bucket and dabbed at Zach's cheeks and forehead. He bristled at the touch of water but otherwise remained still.

"You're not bad company," Midna said, "when you're not awake." She cleaned his upper body to the best of her ability, even taking some time to tend to his matted hair. Naturally, she did not remove any of his clothing—which blissfully had some self-repairing magic in them and thus spared Midna the need to change them—though she did roll up his sleeves to clean his forearms. Anything below the waist was his business.

Once Zach was clean-ish, Midna took her bottles and went to the pond. She set her items at the pond's edge, then slowly lowered herself into the water. Unfortunately, she had to keep herself afloat with her power, for she discovered very quickly that she had little buoyancy to speak of.

All the same, the water was nice and pleasant on Midna's skin. She undid her ponytail and sighed as her hair relaxed in the water. She ran her fingers through the locks, gently removing knots and tangles as her eyes drifted shut. Her poor hair was gunked with poisonous fluids and grime, earning no shortage of painful moments as she massaged those knots and tangles out.

After a few lathers and rinses—and a few tugs on her scalp—Midna's hair was clean and back to its vibrant fiery orange-red. "I'll give that crazy lady this," she muttered as she took a whiff of her flowery-scented hair, "she has good taste in hygiene products."

Midna went to the edge of the pond and sat down, relaxing her magic power. Her body was still filthy, and so she took a bottle of what she assumed to be liquid soap and went about washing herself. She did not remove her shadow silk so even if Zach woke up, he would not see anything. It was not quite as pleasant as a genuine bathhouse with the lack of warm water and privacy, but Midna made do.

Now thoroughly clean, she kicked her feet in the water and watched the ripples move across the surface. She sputtered her lips and lay on her back, her hands cushioning her head. A few clouds passed overhead. The sky was so open and blue! If Midna had the power, she would love to spend some time flitting about in that wide open sky just like when she first arrived in Hyrule.

Had it been so long since then? No, it had only been a few cycles—days, Zach had said. Day and night, one with that bright ball of light, the other with a deep blue sky and its own shapeshifting circle. The Twilight Realm never had a 'day' or 'night' to speak of. It was always the same lovely golden hue no matter where or when one looked.

One could call that a form of stagnation, but Midna would hate that. It was steady, not stagnate. This world was far more chaotic with all its shifty elements. Bright and dark, hot and cold, dry and wet, green and not-green. How was anyone supposed to find their way with such nonsense?

Ah well, what difference did it make in the long run? Zach seemed to know his way around enough, and who better to be Midna's escort than the Sacred Beast himself? He was the brawn to Midna's brain, though she did admit he had a dash of cleverness to him. Just a bit.

Speaking of Zach, Midna turned to him. He was still unconscious but he looked strained, most likely his body's natural response to fighting off a poisonous infection. That was just a consequence of fighting a giant man-eating plant, so Midna was under no obligation to care about his predicament.

That did not stop her from digging into his satchel. There was still a bottle of spring water left—since the water in the bucket was now polluted with poisonous residue—and so she carefully moved Zach's head into her lap and opened his mouth, pouring a small amount down his throat. Her efforts were rewarded by his involuntary gulping, allowing the healing water into his body.

Despite herself, she stayed put and absently stroked Zach's hair. It was soft and feathery, especially now that it was clean. His face had relaxed somewhat, though Midna found herself off-put by the differences in his eye sockets. His good eye was normal, but his bad eye seemed to bulge a bit from the socket. Midna's left eye was blocked whenever she wore the Fused Shadow, but to be missing the organ entirely...?

"I... I'm sorry for calling you One-Eye," she muttered.

Zach unfailingly did not respond. Good. The less he could react to her sappy emotions, the better.

"Look, I'm new to this whole 'saving the world' thing, and from what I've seen, so are you." She sighed, and then that sigh turned into a groan. "But if I'm being absolutely, totally honest... you didn't do a bad job with this boss. I saw you grab that eye before it could grab me, so... thank you, I guess. But don't expect me to act like a typical princess in a fairy tale. 'Oh, brave hero! You deserve a kiss!' Blech!"

Zach groaned but remained unconscious.

"Hey, I don't go around kissing just anybody." Midna rolled her eyes and ignored the slight blush on her cheeks. "You're cute, but not that cute." She looked down and nearly jumped out of her skin when she found Zach staring back up at her with one eye. It was his left eye—the dead one, its surface flecked with dried blood. "Um, Zach?"

He did not respond.

Midna paled upon the realization that his fake eye was not a perfect fit for his skull: his eyelids could not stay closed on their own, so he had to put in a conscious effort for it. "Okay, now I'm really sorry I called you 'One-Eye'." With a deep breath to brace herself, Midna dabbed at his eye with a rag soaked in spring water. She had to avert her own eyes; even though she knew for a fact that it was not a real eye, the sense of actually touching it was very discomforting. "No wonder you're so cranky. If I had to deal with this every waking moment, I'd probably go crazy too."

Once the task was done, Midna rolled up a spare cloth and set it beneath Zach's head. She then dug through the satchel and pulled out that phone of his. He had said it could play music and so Midna spent a good minute or so fumbling with the screen and the many symbols across it until she found the musical note symbol.

What a strange yet fascinating little device. With just a push of a button, Midna had eerily familiar music playing as if she had a live performance right in the palm of her hand. She could only speculate that the music was from her game given the picture of the Fused Shadow beside the song of her choice. She could not read the words, however; they were in a completely different language compared to both Twili and Hylian text.

Still, it was nice music that provided a nice reprieve to the stark silence that preceded it. The music had snippets of Midna's lullaby with accompanying bells and strings, making her feel like the calm after the storm. Now all Midna had to do was make herself comfortable and then wait for Zach to wake up. That should not take too long, right?

"Ugh... Why does my everything hurt..." There was a slight aching sensation along my entire body, but it was especially intense at my thighs and all down my left leg. A soothing breeze rolled through my hair, earning a pleasant groan from me when it relieved the heat on my face. I had yet to open my eyes, so I couldn't determine where I was, only that it was warm and humid. Certainly not what I felt in that treehouse, or in my bed on Earth for that matter.

Something cool and damp gently pressed against my forehead, startling me and causing my eyes to try to open. That just made the dim light beyond my eyelids grow a lot brighter. "Ow..." I moaned when I made to sit up, only for a petite cool hand to press against my collarbone.

"Lie back down," a voice ordered. I obeyed and hissed at the sharp pain in my back from doing so. When I tried to speak, I found that my lips and mouth were so dry and chapped that just opening my mouth hurt. The pain lessened slightly when something wet touched my lips. Water! Blessed, glorious, wet water! I hastily grabbed at the bottle and started to guzzle it down when it went out of reach. "Easy! Easy..." The voice sounded comforting in a condescending way, like the person didn't like helping but knew it had to. "Drink slowly, got it?" I wanted the soothing water so I nodded quickly and waited for it to return. When it did, I managed to take slow, gentle sips as per instruction.

Once I was satisfied, I gasped in relief and was able to mutter, "What happened?" My eyes opened a little to see something pale and glowing nearby.

The something wiped my forehead again and said, "You had a fever. We've been here a whole day."

"I feel like shit."

"You look it, too. Can you move?"

After a few moments of testing my muscles a bit, I managed to sit up and said, "Yeah, barely." My vision cleared and showed we were still in the area we fought Diababa... and won. "Hey, not bad for our first boss fight."

Midna wrung a towel and patted her own forehead with it. "Yeah, not bad at all. Of course, it would have gone better if you weren't so clueless."

"Come on, I did an okay job," I protested while reaching into my satchel. "I'm not dead, after all."

Midna glared and threw the towel at me, catching me in the face. "We wasted a whole day," she hissed. "I could almost feel the Twilight expanding while you were busy napping!"

With a sigh, I pulled out my phone and turned the camera on. "I thought we agreed not to take our tempers out on each other, now get over here so I can take a picture."

"Why would I want to do that?" she asked. "And I'm not taking my temper out on you. You'll know when that happens."

I shrugged and checked myself in the camera feed. I was surprisingly clean for getting poisoned like I was. "I thought it'd be nice to have a memory of this event. It's not every day you kill a giant plant and reclaim an ancient artifact."

Midna frowned but eventually nodded. "Fine, you have a point," she grumbled, then walked over to me. It's a good thing there was shade above us or she might have burned or something.

Fighting off a shudder, I said, "You could be a little more enthusiastic. We're a third of the way there."

"Again, true." She moved behind me and leaned over my shoulder, sans Fused Shadow. "There isn't gonna be a super bright light, is there?"

I shook my head and got the camera ready. "Flash is off. Say cheese!" A few seconds later and the second photograph in Hyrule was taken. "Nice smile." It was sincere, she did have a great smile... For the picture, of course.

"Thanks," Midna said as she brushed herself off. "Two things, though: Why would I say 'cheese' and why did you call me 'strange one' before?"

"Oh, heh." I shrugged and put the phone away. "It's because saying it in my language stretches our faces into smiles. As for the 'strange one', I was quoting a movie."

Midna blinked and stretched her arms. "What's a movie?"

"A play that is recorded and can be watched at any convenient time," I explained. "The quote is from a movie where the main hero is trapped in a deep pit and surrounded by monsters, so this wise man shouts, 'Strange one!' from above and drops the hero's weapon for him."

"I see... Well, that's fascinating, but we've got a schedule to keep." She motioned for me to stand as she donned her helmet. "Get up and let's go."

I sighed and tried to ignore the sore muscles in my legs as I rose to my feet. "I can't have some time to recover?" I grumbled. What did she want from me? I killed a giant plant, for crying out loud!

Midna glared at me and said, "You've had a whole day! You've recovered enough, so let's not waste any more time here when we could be looking for the other two Fused Shadow!" She then vanished into my shadow, as if that ended the conversation.

"Hey, that's not fair!" I said, then noticed my clothes are all clean and undamaged. "Hey, what happened to my clothes?"

"I guess they're magic," she said. "Your pants were shredded right after you killed the Twilit Parasite, but they were all repaired and clean when I was about to change them."

My body was aching as I took up my sword and shield and put them in their proper places. "Wait, you were about to change my clothes?"

Midna sighed. "It was a brief moment of weakness and sympathy, get over yourself."

"Fine," I grumbled, then looked around. "Um..."

"What now?"

"How am I going to get out of here?"

Midna popped back out of my shadow and surveyed the area. We were still in the meadow Diababa had inhabited, which meant I would have to climb that really tall tree to get back to Faron Woods. "Oh... good point." She assumed her shadowy form and floated over to near Diababa's resting place. After a moment, she pointed at the ground and a green and black vortex opened up, just like in the game. "I'll get you out of here... I hope..."

Raising a concerned eyebrow, I walked over to the vortex and said, "You don't sound very confident."

She sighed and rubbed her forehead. "I got a power boost from the second Fused Shadow, so I think I can warp you to Faron's Spring, or at least the area with the bathhouse. I just... Look, it's not my specialty, alright?"

"Then what is?"

"None of your business! Are you all done here?"

I took a deep breath, counted to ten, and walked into the vortex.