A/N: We're here! The final chapter of Part I. Did I expect it to take 13 chapters and 65k words to get this far? No, I did not. On my last fic, that was about of the third of the way through. Here? I doubt we've even cracked 10%...
I actually wrote a significant portion of this chapter on my phone. Part of my morning routine at the time involved pasting the last few paragraphs into Evernote and writing from there on the way to work. On good days (of which I had 4 the week I started doing that) I had 500 words down before 8am. If I wrote on the way home too, I sometimes hit 800 words. Oh, one of the few joys of public transport.
The Light Invasion
PART I - DESERT THE ARMY
Link of Ordon: is your duty to your kingdom, or the parasite in your shadow?
Chapter 13 - Divided Loyalties
Another arrow nailed the spirit's twisted head. With a howl, it glided around the wide room in tighter circles, smoke trailing from its dark robes. The party of four were forced together until the giant swept before them and raised its cleaver high. The twins bolted for opposite walls. Ashei and Link rolled to the side. The pound shook the room, and just as they had gambled, the death sword was stuck.
Link raised his shield high. Ashei vaulted over the cleaver, jumped on, and Link shoved with all his might. Ashei soared and thrust her rapier through the spirit's upper jaw and out the back of its skull. It threw back its head and thrashed, screamed, and clawed at the catch in its throat. Link and Ashei bolted away from its sweeping, lashing claws.
Its thrashing became twitching, and then it stiffened like a winter shrub. Arched back. Open jaws. A statue of agony that finally, finally, melted away into… scarabs. A swarm of scarabs scuttling across the engraved sandstone. Link danced around them. Ever since the quicksand incident, he swore that not one more of those nasty things would find a home in his boots! But they swarmed past him, past everyone, into the cervices and cracks in the walls.
Ashei's sword clattered against the floor, along with a few of the brothers' arrows. Jay and Reed gasped like it was their tenth birthday. "Recycling!" they shouted in tandum as they bolted in to wrestle over their precious projectiles. Ashei yawned at the affair as she wandered over to her blade.
What a 'day' it had been so far. A few hours of travel, a battle through the bulblin's fort, and then poes, redeads, stalfos, and spike traps in this terrifying crypt. How the twins still had some energy in them after all that was a mystery. Link's mind and muscles were begging for rest. Alas, that would only happen at Reed's orders.
With their weapons stowed, Reed beckoned the party to the door opposite from the one they had entered through. "Let's see what that ghost was hiding," he said. Together, the team lifted the door and went inside. The narrow room was about the size of Link's home, with rails along the walls (much like what they had seen all around the grounds), two torches, and a rusty chest between them.
After Ashei and the twins had a brief squabble over if it was a trap or not, the men pressed themselves against the walls as Ashei cautiously jammed her rapier into the side of the chest and pried it open. No deadly spirit or spout of flame or swarm of scarabs poured out. Nothing but dust and a creak. Link grabbed the other side of the lid and threw it open.
The grand 'prize' was revealed. A contraption that resembled the spinning tops Link and Ilia (and now Colin and Talo) had played with as children, except this was made from metal, not wood, and it had gears and 'teeth' around the edges. Like a wheel but complicated. Very complicated. How in Nayru's law could such a complex wheel —or spinning top— even exist?
"The hell is this for?" Ashei muscled past him and heaved it out with more strength than her frame implied. "Like the world's biggest and stubbiest flechette. We suppose to drop it on someone's head?"
"Ashei," Jay began, "you know I love you-"
"Wrong tree," she deadpanned.
"-but that is the stupidest theory I have ever heard."
"Well, what do you think it is, genius?" Without warning, Ashei tossed it his way. Both twins cried out and caught it. Crass as the question was, Link too was curious. There had to be a clue around here somewhere. A reason why such an odd device would be here of all places.
Those odd tracks they had seen all over the temple were here as well, running along the walls to the door they had come from. Link beckoned for the device from the squabbling trio. "Can I try something?"
With a huff, Reed hefted the device to Link. It was as heavy as a bail of hay, so not too challenging to haul to the wall. He placed the teeth into the rail and there was a click. Everyone took a sharp breath.
Link lightly stomped on the top. It creaked, but only a smidge. Next, he stepped on, and just his luck, something sank beneath his foot, and the device jerked from under him. He flapped his arms, wobbled for balance, and the device began to slow. He pressed the button again, and the device whirred on. Press press press. It crossed the room and spat Link and the spinner onto the floor. As he lost balance, he stumbled off, but he didn't fall, at least.
From the other side of the room, there was silence, then one slow applause, then another, and finally, a reluctant third. "Nice job, hero," Reed said. "Now bring it back here. I'd like to give it a whirl."
"Hey commander!" Ashei said loud enough to wake the dead. "Why don't you let your soldiers get some shut-eye first? Then you can try it out first thing tomorrow, yeah?" Thank Hylia for her sense.
Reed jolted straight. "Right! Er, good work today everyone. Let's camp in the death arena for 'tonight'."
They kept the camp set-up as simple as possible. Start a fire. Throw around a few blankets. Share the jerky. Despite everyone's exhaustion, the adrenaline of the 'day' still lingered, so no one was ready to fall asleep just yet. Instead, Reed mandated that they go around the circle asking questions as a 'team-building exercise.'
"Jay, you're up first," Reed said. "Tell us a bit about who you are."
"Ah yes, let me just reveal my top-secret double life that you know nothing about," Jay chortled. "It all began when I joined the Cult of Skulltula at age two."
"Jay," Reed warned. "If you don't take this seriously, then I could always tell them about-"
"Fine! Fine. How about our repressed childhood trauma? That's always a crowd-pleaser." Reed smirked and nodded. Jay waggled his eyebrows at Link and Ashei. "Did you know that my brother and I used to hate each other's guts?"
Ashei swallowed a bite of jerky. "That's just how siblings go, yeah?"
"Oh ho ho, not as bad as this," Reed said. "Our parents fought often, and they each had a favourite child, so they constantly pitted us against each other."
"Hey, I do believe that it's my turn," Jay whined. "You could say that's how we became the best archers in Hyrule. I was expected to be better than this guy." Jay jabbed a thumb at Reed.
"What changed?" Link asked.
"We grew up," Reed said. "Our parents weren't getting any kinder, but we sure were. Found out we're pretty unstoppable together. You've seen for yourself." Indeed they had. When the party had reached a room with four blue flames, some lanterns flew out of the grand doorway and stole them, thus closing the way forward. The Larkson brothers shattered them before they could flee, and in no time at all, the flames had returned to open the gate again.
"Now what about you, Link?" Reed asked. "I hear you come from a small farming village. All the best heroes have humble beginnings, so do tell us yours."
It had been over a week, maybe two, since Link had left Ordon. What could he say about it that wasn't a bore? Maybe Jay was onto something regarding childhood trauma being a crowd-pleaser. Sharing such intimate information might mean Link would be less tempted to betray his team for Midna's agenda.
"It wasn't always so small," he began. "Still small compared to Castle Town, but it was… livelier. I had a good family, good friends, a pretty good life." Link's hand twitched for his satchel at his side. Bad idea. He couldn't let them rifle through that book. What if they went too far? Discovered the damning drawing of Midna?
Oh gods. Midna was still around. Midna could hear everything. Midna was about to learn about Link's gut-wrenching past. He couldn't let her have it or know it, no matter how much he owed her. He couldn't risk her weaving it into her manipulation, just like she had with Uli's unborn baby.
"Was?" Ashei asked, a rare edge of tenderness in her tone.
"Uh, we had a few bad harvests," Link fibbed. "A lot of people moved away to find better-paying jobs. Things got boring after that." He smiled awkwardly. More of a grimace if anything. (Honestly, it was a relief to not have to share that history.)
Ashei wrinkled her brow. "Even your parents?"
Oh gods damn it! "Yeah. They sent money home while I stayed with my godparents. Visited whenever they could."
"Goddesses have mercy on the poor," Reed said. "No boy should have to be without his parents."
And yet that was the reality Link lived through. Ilia and Fado too. It was what every post-plague child in Ordon had to endure now that their fathers had been rounded up into the very same army Link had sworn loyalty to.
Old resentments were bubbling back. Resentment for the soldiers that took him and his family away. Resentment for the prince who ordered it. Resentment for the Twili for forcing Fabian's hand. Resentment for this whole war. If only it wasn't happening. If only it didn't need to.
Fabian had said that Link couldn't complete his destiny without an army of magnitude, but what if he was wrong? Link wanted him to be wrong. He wanted to go this adventure alone like every other hero, liberate the light spirits with his sword and his alone, and prevent Fado, Bo, Hanch, Jaggle, Rusl, and every other drafted soldier from ever taking up arms against the Twili threat.
And Midna? She said it was possible. She might be shrewish, mysterious, and out for her own selfish ends, but she had stuck by him through so much already. She had helped him lift the twilight from his home, offered to be his guide, and saved his life mere hours ago. A part of him screamed that any deal with her was a deal with a demon, and now he understood why the fools in the fables were so tempted to take the binding handshake.
"Your turn, Ashei," Reed said, "and I must say, you're quite the enigma. One of our best warriors treated as one of the worst by our general."
"And plot twist!" Jay sang. "Your mother."
Ashei snorted. "Not much to tell there. She's just a bitter bitch, yeah? Doesn't want me or any other ladies getting far in the military 'cause it makes her less special."
"But that doesn't make sense," Link said. "Shouldn't she be glad that other women are following in her footsteps?"
"Uh, no, because she didn't change the status quo. She just made her nest on top of it like every other high-ranking officer. Honestly, she'd rather you forget that she's a woman."
"And I often do," Jay said.
"People like me? We rattle the scaffolding. Rattle her nest. She thinks that unless she keeps things the same, everything's gonna topple over."
"Well, now is the last time that things can afford to topple over," said Reed. Ashei rolled her eyes with a scoff.
A general that abused one of her best warriors on the grounds of being a woman. Was that someone Link wanted to serve under? Not really, but he hadn't a choice. Midna said he had a choice, but he didn't. He really didn't. Link was drafted like any other soldier, after all, and he wasn't about to betray the common folk by declaring himself the exception. Not at all.
Reed took the first watch, then Jay, then Ashei, and finally, Link. A good thing, too, because he needed to be at his most rested for the conversation ahead.
Once the other soldiers were dozing, his shadow stirred, and a single red eye rose from the darkness. There she was: the imp he had done so wrong who had done him so right.
"Time to go." There was no sass or demand in Midna's whisper. She stated it as if it was already decided. Was that an attitude improvement or a new level of audacity? Didn't matter. Link had to make a choice. Honour his kingdom or honour his debt to the sketchy imp?
Link stood, stretched, and strolled from the party, but he waved Midna along. "Let's talk first."
Whatever expression she had, the darkness hid it well. Did she purse her lips? Did she scowl? Or did she pensively look back at him? Her lone eye gave no clues. That was until it bobbed after him.
He rounded the rubble wrought by the cleaver and lounged against the wall furthest from his comrades. She hovered beside him. This was a first for them. The first time Link had willingly chosen to be alone with the stowaway in his shadow.
"So what do you want?" Her snark was back, but so was the strain of reeling it in.
What did Link want? "I didn't get to thank-"
"I don't need your thanks!" Midna hissed. "I need your demands. I saved your life, but clearly, that was enough. Do you need me to dance for you? Sing for you? Swear some magically binding oath? What do you want?" Begging? The imp who had saved his life had resorted to… begging? "Quit gawping! Whatever you want, I'll do it, I'll get it. Just leave them and help me save my realm."
He had no words. None at all. He couldn't see her tears, but if they were there, he heard them. The crack in her voice. The desperation dripping off every word like the sweat on a slave's brow. What could he say to that?
"It was enough."
Her eye grew wide like a child witnessing a shooting star. And she was speechless. Utterly speechless. Until the quiet words came. "So… you'll come with me? Right now?"
Link took off his hat and wrung it in his hands. "I don't know." Serve a rogue Twili or serve Hyrule: it wasn't a decision he could make in a matter of seconds. He didn't even know everything he needed to determine which was right and which was wrong.
"But you just said that saving you was enough," Midna sneered. "Did you lie to me?"
"No!"
"Then what's stopping you? What kick in the butt do you need? Why are you still here?"
"I want to talk!"
"About what?"
"About… About… If this is the right thing to do."
Midna scoffed. "Alright, Mr Important Hero. Let's discuss your moral panic, then."
But did Link want to? If Midna was willing to do anything to get Link to desert the army, then she could be willing to say anything to swindle him. But how many helping hands could Link reason away as some manipulative ploy? How many opportunities to cause him harm did she pass up? How many times could he draw and redraw the enemy line between them, only for her to smudge it all over again?
"I still don't think Hyrule is at fault," he began. "It doesn't make sense, and I really don't think Fabian would do something like that to his people."
"Oh, so that's what you're after? Civil debate? Well, I'm not feeling very civil at the moment," she said.
"No! I don't want you to try and convince me that you're right. I just want you to swear that everything you promised is true," Link said. "You want the spirits gone. You'll guide me through your realm. You'll help me save Hyrule just like you helped me save Ordon."
"Yes! I've been saying that from the start. I gave you every chance to follow your destiny, but you tossed them in the trash, you strayed the path, and you insisted on joining this stupid army!
"And sure, maybe I could've been nicer about it, but I doubt it would've changed a thing. You branded me as a threat, no matter what I did. Like what did I do to make you think that I was going to hurt you in that cave?"
"Stop."
"But-"
"Stop," Link ordered. "Believe what you want. Believe that I'm some horrible person for being drafted into the army. Believe that the prince sent the light spirits into your world. I don't care. I want you to promise me that doing things your way will stop this war!"
Again, she was speechless, her eye wide, and Link pictured a gaping jaw that she clamped shut. "Fine," she mumbled. "Fine! If you come with me, I can tell you how my world works. I can lead you to the spirits. I can save your stupid hide a dozen more times. Does that offer sound sweet enough for you?"
It should, but something was stalling Link. Something he was too ashamed to name, but Midna could. She sighed. "You don't believe me."
Link nibbled his lip. It was the bitter truth. He still didn't trust her, so he still couldn't bring himself to believe her. If she lied to him, then he would be alone and vulnerable on enemy turf, and Twilit tyranny would be one step closer to shackling all of Hyrule.
And what if Midna did keep her word? What if every promise was fulfilled? What if he prevented a mother from being widowed, or a child from being orphaned, all because he and he alone took up arms. He could complete an army's mission in a third of the time. One hero and his shadow.
Midna closed her eye with a sigh. "You know what? Let's make a deal. While your annoying 'friends' are sleeping, I want you to come with me and we'll take one look, one look, at the state my world is in. If you still don't believe me, then you can run back to your band of admirers and continue the mission as normal. They won't even know you were fraternising with a lowly shadowbeast for an hour or two."
It was tempting, so tempting, but one little condition was unaccounted for. "And if I do choose to bring soldiers into your realm, what will you do?"
Midna shrank away, her eye downcast. "I think you know, but never ever forget that you're the ones with the weapons to stop me."
The pouch of deku nuts dragged on Link's belt. Maybe Midna did hold horrible hexes close to her chest, maybe she could snare him with her shadows like the Twili back in Ordon, but Link could stop her the second she lashed out.
He owed her a chance. "Lead the way."
Midna jerked her eye towards the spinner lying on its side in the circle of soldiers. "You'll need that first."
Every step towards Link's comrades no longer felt like a lynel rejoining its pack. Rather, he was a lonely cucco creeping into their den. Link tiptoed between his blanket and Ashei's, curled his fingers around the spinner, and gingerly lifted it.
Midna placed a finger on it and it shattered into black squares. Link sucked in a breath. Ashei stirred.
He froze. Midna was in his shadow again, so he might be able to pass himself off as stretching his legs, but how would that explain the missing spinner?
Ashei exhaled deeply, settling back into her sandstone mattress.
Link pilfered a few more supplies and passed them to Midna: blanket, rations, food. The only thing he didn't surrender was his sketchbook and charcoals, which he slipped into a crossbody satchel. He wore that strap under the fastenings of his sword and shield, then he stepped as Rusl had taught him on their hunting expeditions. Sand and stone was easier to creep over than dried foliage, but every grain that ground under Link's boot jumped his heartbeat a little higher.
At last, he was before the door from whence they came. A door that led back to the stalfos, back to the redeads, back to the scarabs, and to the unknown terrors of another world. He was about to face it without the team who had gotten him this far.
With a deep breath, he dug his fingers under the door and lifted it.
Stone scraped stone: a rumbling alarm.
"Wha... Link?" Ashei rose to her waist. "What are you- hey!" Her cry jolted the twins upright.
Link ducked under the door. It dropped behind him, but seconds later, it ground open again. Midna leapt into the torchlight, her hand of hair beckoning him to follow her into a wide cylinder room with spinner tracks spiralling to a high ledge.
"You dare leave your post?" a Larkson roared.
"Reed, don't- JAY!" Ashei screamed.
Link scrabbled up a crumbling staircase and kicked something. The spinner. He jammed it into the rail and mashed the mechanism. As he sped along the wall, something whizzed past the nape of his neck, then his line of sight. Arrows.
The twins were firing at him, only missing because Ashei was clawing at their arms. Reed elbowed her away and she caught her heel on a skull, toppling onto her rear. The twins took aim again.
Midna twisted before Link and snapped her fingers. The arrows stopped metres from them, turned around, and shot back. Reed and Jay dove aside.
"He's with the shadowbeasts!" Jay yelled. "That bastard is with the shadowbeasts!"
Link wanted to yell back, but he couldn't. He needed to keep spinning up the wall. He needed to trust Midna to have his back. He wanted to tell her not to shoot the arrows back, but he was panting, his thigh throbbed from all the mashing, and not every arrow was caught in Midna's magic. A sting streaked across his brow. The arrow bounced against the wall and spun to the sandy floor far below.
At last, the rail spat Link onto the ledge. He leapt off the spinner as it shattered into squares and ran for a grand double door that had no business being this hard to get to.
No more arrows followed. The ledge barricaded them. Midna threw out her tiny hands and pried the air. The door creaked and groaned under her spell. Sand and dust spilling from hinges and carvings, slowly opening the way to whatever new peril Link would have to face.
When the gap was just wide enough, Link squeezed through it and Midna slammed the door behind them.
In a new room. Scout the danger. A large circular area with a ceiling as tall as the tree on Fado's house. A path of dark debris cut through the lagoon of sand to the yellowed skeleton of a titanic animal with fangs, tusks, claws, and horns.
Many other skeletons in this cursed place had risen. Why not that of a dragon too? Why not take this thing on all on his own? It would be a great way to rub in his newfound status as a traitor.
The 'hero' who abandoned his comrades. The 'hero' who allied with an invader. The 'hero' who committed treason against the very kingdom he was supposed to serve.
A ragged sob knocked him to his knees. Those were the stories Ashei, Reed, and Jay would bring back to the prince. Those were the stories that would echo all over Hyrule, reaching the ears of Ordon and those who were drafted. Link had family in the army and he had sided against him, just as he had sided against the three people who had repelled every blow that came for Link's back.
Jay was right. Link was a traitor. He would continue to be unless Midna kept her word.
"If you're lying to me, say it now." It sounded like a beg. It was a beg. "I'm serious. It's already too late to go back. If going with you is gonna make things worse for my world, then confess. Please..."
She hovered before him with her arms crossed and legs together, like a shard of black glass speared into the dragon's skull. "I don't have time for this," she said calmly. The same tone Rusl would use for Link whenever he was caught in the midst of one of his pranks. "Neither do you, so unless you expect me to pull some magical, all-telling proof out of my ass, we need to finish this quest before both our worlds get destroyed."
That's right. She had, —or claimed to have— noble motivations of saving her own world. Midna's goals were aligned with his, so he should go with her.
But what if she was lying? What if she was lying? What if a step between worlds was a step too far?
Between the horns of the dragon was a door. Before the door sat the golden wolf.
Link pried himself from the floor, dragged his feet along the stone, clambered over the skull (which creaked and cracked beneath him), and waded through the sand. Every grain that seeped into his boots weighed him down, every bead of sweat made him parched, but that wolf pulled him in like a sinking lure.
It no longer growled, no longer bared its teeth, but it still sat like a guard dog. Statuesque. All that moved was the red eye that beheld the hero-turned-traitor. Casting unknown judgement upon Link.
The wolf stood as Link's shadow touched its paws. Link froze. Would it pounce, jaws snapping, exterminating him in the same fashion as Link had exterminated the shadowbeasts?
No. It turned around, glanced over its shoulder, and wandered through the solid stone door.
Midna lifted it for Link, though it got jammed a few times. Half-open was more than enough for Link to pull himself through like a fisherman reeling himself in on his own hook. A wall dappled in moonlight greeted him, but a crumbling staircase led him around. It curved upwards to the broken arches of the colosseum, cutting the night sky into choppy half-moons. Yesterday 'morning', this place was barely even a spot on the horizon.
The staircase delivered Link to a man-made plateau coated in a thin layer of sand. From the pillars, thick chains bit the ground behind the statue of an unknown, smiling woman. If she was a goddess, it was no goddess that Link knew. A snake spiralled around her, and along the snake ran spinner tracks.
Link took a step, then paused. If this truly was the gateway between realms, then there was no way Zant would leave it unguarded. Sure enough, swirling high above the colosseum, was a red portal.
Link tentatively reached for his sword as he paced closer to the statue. "If some shadowbeasts, or Twili, come out of that thing, can you freeze them with that spell again?"
Midna sighed in his shadow. "Not in this form."
"Then can you-"
"No. Until you kick the first light spirit out of my realm, I'm stuck as a shadow. Got it? The best I can do is draw them in for one of your fancy spin attacks."
Spin attacks. Of course. "Thanks."
"And the noble and just hero finally remembers his manners," Midna sarcased. "What a circum."
Link's cheeks flushed. He flipped through memories of their interactions like pages in a book, and he hadn't said please or thank-you to her before, although in all fairness, neither had she.
On his third step towards the statue, five shadowbeasts fell from the portal. He stabbed the first in the chest before it ever got up, then the second just after it did. It was leagues easier, and cleaner, to fight with steel over teeth.
Midna's shadows tore into the third. Two left. Link rapped sword against shield, slowly backing away from the shadowbeast he lured closer. At his back, Midna pelted the other beast with rubble. When both monsters were close enough to rip into Link, Midna yelled. "Now!"
They raised their claws, but Link was swifter. In a single spin, their bellies burst, and they fell with their dying, ragged breaths.
Midna popped out of Link's shadow. Link nodded at her with an awkward smile. "Nice work."
She didn't say anything, didn't even look at him. Instead, she flourished her arms, casting the corpses into black flame. With a heavy sigh, she turned to the sky and flourished at that as well, enchanting it from red to teal.
Midna snapped her fingers. The spinner appeared at his feet. She disappeared after that, sheltering in his shadow once more.
Link hoisted the spinner to his shoulder and lumbered forward. He fixed it into the railing, hopped on, and mashed the mechanism. The following moment was magic. The cool air on his sweat-gleaned cheek, the breeze fluttering his hair and clothes, the pillars and stars swirling around him.
The track fed Link onto a small, circular platform that the statue wore as a crown. Link hopped off the spinner before it toppled. The sole of his boot jerked down, scraping metal teeth. He leapt back. His ankles hung off the edge. Arms spun, reeling him back to balance.
In the middle of the platform, there was a shallow hole surrounded by metal teeth that were the inverse of the spinner's. Link inserted the spinner into the hole and jimmied it around until it clicked, then he stepped on and mashed the button.
All at once, the desolate colosseum whirred to life. The statue sank. The pillars rose. The sorry chains went taught and groaned in a game of tug-o-war between the pillars and whatever was buried beneath the sand. The pile grew higher, then thinner, the pale gold falling away from a mass as black as Link's basement.
The giant slab of stone, bound in more chains than the King of Thieves, was hoisted up like a washing line. Sand sprinkled from carved runes resembling those that donned Midna back in the twilight, but these weren't aglow. They were like twisted, jagged veins leading into a heart: a pristinely plain circle.
The platform became one with the floor. Link hopped off as he wandered to this magnificent stone. Behind him, there was a snap, like a twig breaking, and he knew the spinner was back in Midna's void.
If this was the gateway, then how did it work? How did solid stone become a portal between realms?
"It's… still here." Link whirled around to Midna's voice. On a platform that wasn't there before, a silvery disk cut out her silhouette. When he roamed closer, the moonlight shifted to reveal a mirror face with pearly lines forming rings of diamonds, cogs, and runes around a Triforce symbol in the centre. On the shiny surface between the lines, Midna's eye glowed on a backdrop of chains, black stone, and the swath of stars in the sky.
"What do you mean?" Link asked.
Midna opened her mouth to answer (or refuse to answer), when a withered choir called from above.
"Welcome, hero and companion, to the gateway between realms."
Atop five of the six pillars, they loomed, glowing as white as the stars and imitating the appearance of humans with little more accuracy than nesting dolls. Their faces were like masks floating inches from their heads, and no feet were visible from their vial-shaped robes.
"You who are guided by fate, you who possess the crest of the goddess, hear us." They spoke together, voices layering and rolling into one like the aromas of a simmering pot. "At the command of the goddesses, we sages have guarded the Mirror of Twilight since ancient times.
"And we regret to say…" They floated from the pillars to the sandy floor like dust in a sunbeam. "…that we have failed in our duty." They draped a sleeve over their chests and bowed.
Midna crossed her arms and scoffed. "You think? I'd sure love to know why these so-called guardians allowed this," she threw her arms and chest to the heavans, "to happen!"
"Thirteen 'days' ago, the light spirits Faron, Eldin, and Lanayru arrived in this chamber. They spoke of a devastating prophecy that could not come to pass. A Hyrule blotted out by the dark shroud of twilight."
Midna threw back her head and groaned like a 9-year-old who was asked to do the dishes.
"They commanded that we open the gateway and allow them through, so that they may stall the coming invasion. As lesser guardians ourselves, we gave them passage, and they swore to return when the sun rose again.
"Then the night droned on, for the spirits had taken the essence of the sun with them. We waited and waited for the equivalent of two 'days', but still, they did not return. We agreed to wait for a third 'day', and if they did not return, then we'd seal away the mirror and seek the guidance of the mighty Ordona.
"The next 'day', the portal ignited, and we eagerly waited to welcome the spirits home, but it was not they who passed through the portal. No, it was the King of Shadows."
"Zant," Midna hissed. "Did your oh-so-wise light spirits bother to mention something as predictable as the scum of my world showing up to give all Twili a bad name?"
"We the sages know precious little of your world, but we know enough to understand that we owe you, Midna of the Twilight Realm, our deepest and most profound apology." The agents of the goddesses themselves bowed to her, deeply, as if she was Queen Zelda herself. What could Link gather from that other than maybe, just maybe, the Holy Maidens of the sacred realm weren't as against Midna as Link had initially thought. Perhaps it was always Their intention that he follow her here alone. But there was no way to know anything for certain...
Midna was not humbled by this act of respect. No. It made her fists shake, her teeth grind, and her eye twitch. "I don't want your apology!" she snapped. "I want to get back home and fix your mess, so here's what you're going to do." She zoomed to the centre sage and shoved the finger of her hair hand shy of their nose. "You are going to open this portal, allow me and Link into my realm, seal the portal away, and then open it in two months' time so that I can shove your scummy spirits back into your crummy world. Are. We. Clear?"
The sage, not the slightest bit phased by the imp's temper, slid back into another bow, as did their fellows. "Like the surface of a mirror, oh Twilight Princess."
Link choked on a laugh, eyes screwed shut and a fist pressed into a stubborn smile. The nerve of those sages. Princess. That was the perfect word to describe her. They said that all the foreign princesses were far brattier than Hyrule's lineage of Zeldas.
No hissy fits or whining followed the tease. The oddness of it settled Link's urge to laugh, and he was able to straighten himself and open his eyes, where Midna was staring at him, hugging herself protectively, as if he had walked in on her in the Royal Dressing Room without (get a load of this scandal) her gloves on. Gods, those sages had mortified her speechless. Trying not to laugh was harder than dodging the Larksons' arrows.
The sages raised their hands to the mirror. It glowed, pulsed with light, and then the pearly white patterns projected forth, spinning and layering until they stencilled a portal through the stone, the pieces rotating like the cogs of a pulley.
"Chosen hero," the spirits echoed. "Please know that once you have passed through the portal, we will seal it away just as before. We know of the intruders who follow you as we speak."
Link's feet carried him up the stairs and onto the platform of the mirror. When he stood in its warm beams, stairs of pure light thinner than parchment arched from the platform and to a small, circular balcony. The perfect point to gaze into the gateway between dimensions.
Link carefully set his foot against the first step. It didn't snap under his weight or let him phase through. He took a second step, a third, and when he was one away from the platform, Midna floated into his path. "Take one more step, and you'll be transported to my world," she said. "Do you understand that?"
His knees locked in place. Through her, the portal kept hypnotising him, beckoning him, luring him into a place totally unknown by Hyrulean eyes. Different customs. Different values. Different laws of nature. All things he knew next to nothing about, but Midna had, until now, demanded that he throw himself into headfirst for the sake of his destiny. And the sake of his debt.
But annoying, demanding, and entitled as she was, she had given him one last chance to reconsider, to question if the next step he was about to take was a step too far. How… decent of her. He'd rather she made that choice for him, rather she forced him through the portal, so that whatever happened next couldn't be his fault. Even the golden wolf was no where to be seen. No where to guide him.
This step was to be taken by the authority of one: Link. A step to snap the last string that tied Link to the scout team who were surely cursing him in the crypt below. A step to throw Prince Fabian's plan into disarray, no matter how pure his intentions may be. A step for Link to claim his destiny as his and his alone, so that no army would have to shoulder this burden.
A step that would place Link's fate in the hands of the prissy, snarky, hot-tempered imp who dwelled in his shadow. It was a leap of faith so daunting that it was like hurtling headfirst into the dark valley between Ordon and Faron, because someone had said that you might find your wings on the way down.
Link had already lost the wings he had in Hyrule, but maybe, just maybe, he'd find them again in this other realm.
He nodded at Midna, and she smiled like Link had never seen her before. No smirking. No smugness. She smiled like he had offered her a cup of tea, and then she twisted into his shadow without another word.
With the final step, he surrendered himself to the portal, allowing it to break him into a thousand fractals, bound for parts and perils unknown.
END OF PART I - DESERT THE ARMY
A/N: Woohoo! Twilight realm next chapter! Who's excited? I'm excited! Our bickering and not-so-soon to be best friends/lovebirds are officially stuck with each other and only each other.
With the twilight realm supposedly being overtaken by the light spirits, what do you predict it will look like? What damage has been done? Since it's my birthday this weekend, anyone who answers at least one of these questions will get a sneaky peaky, out-of-context line from the next chapter :D (But only if you have an FFN account because I can't respond to guests on this website.)
