A/N: Whoop whoop Book 1 has now been completely drafted! I can confidently say we're not even halfway through, and everything only gets bigger and better in the remaining 29 chapters. I've got backlog to last me for over 13 months.

Content warning for intrusive/"suicidal" thoughts and implied suicide by the way.


The Light Invasion

PART II - LIFT THE LIGHT

Region by region, dungeon by dungeon, trial by trial, Link and Midna build a fragile trust.


Chapter 23 - Call of the Void


Entering that temple, in its current, unstable state was a real test of Link's courage. Tuushu had assured him that the monks' shadow mending spells made the premise perfectly safe (for now).

Every step echoed in this place, while Monk Tuushu (cradling light in his palm) padded along with uncanny silence from his soles. He had plenty of babbling to make up for it. "Here is our gallery, a record of all the gods of our world."

Didn't look much like a gallery, let alone one for gods. There were no statues or murals of them here, despite ample space to host them. The bottom floor was twice the span of Bo's house, with glossy and cracked marble floors and pillars supporting the levels above. Shadows trickled up the walls, lashing marble pillars back together and filling in the cracks. Heavy cloth shaded every paneless window, casting the temple in almost total darkness. There were a few spots of light leaking from the holes in the roof, as well as the dim, flickering patterns of cyan circles and angles and curves upon the walls.

Link had seen those same patterns everywhere in Luce Prima, where they were simply a feature of the architecture, burned into their space of display. This "gallery" was no different.

Tuushu led Link and Midna to one of these strange designs. With the way the angular lines spread from the circle, it looked like those warp portals Link and Midna had been using. "Now this is Celeste," Tuushu said, "the space-bending god."

That design, that pattern on the wall, was depicting a god? Where was the, well, person-like figure? Did this god actually look like a fried egg, or a flying spaghetti monster, or a cannonball that hit the ground from the Great Deku Tree's height?

Midna snorted. "You've confused him."

Link flushed, and of course the darkness didn't hide it from his Twilit company. "That's, uh… very different from how gods look in my world," he said.

Monk Tuushu chuckled. "Your goddesses resemble the founding race of Hyrule, do they not? The Hylians?" How did Tuushu know that?

He glided forth to better light the pattern. "The gods of this realm, however, are not something we personify, nor do we pray to them. They're forces of nature. They simply exist. For example…"

Tuushu led the duo to the next abstract pattern. This one resembled the 'upside-down matryoshka doll' design of the Palace of Twilight. "This is Hesper, the brilliant orange that blazes our skies, or used to," he said dimly.

"And will again," Link said. "We'll make sure of it."

The monk kept 'introducing' Link to all the gods of this world. Ascepi, the god of flesh and healing. Posana, the god of water, who delivered freshwater into pools all over Twilux without the need for a rain cycle. Mistare, the god of plants and the secret behind the Sphaera Forest's independence from soil.

Every single one of those abstract illustrations, Link had seen before. But where exactly? On buildings? On garments? As tattoos?

Everywhere. This religious imagery was everywhere! Always in slight variations. Always somewhere tangentially related to the god themselves. The floating platforms that carried Link around Luce Prima resembled the portals that had carried him around Twilux resembled the tattoos on Midna's forearms.

"Excuse me," Link said to the monk. "These markings. I was just wondering if they had something to do with Twilit magic?"

Midna, silhouetted by a beam of light, side-eyed him with a raised brow and smirk. If not for all the monks around, she might've teased him out loud. "Those brains are growing in slow and steady, Wolfie."

Tuushu, at least, had the decency to beam. "What a bright young fellow!" Finally, some validation! "These markings of the gods are incorporated into the very fabric of our society. Sometimes as a tribute to them, but others with a more practical purpose in mind. To further explain, I shall have to take you to the second floor. Looks like they've…" he 'nudged' Link with his elbow, "levelled it out." That grin was wide on Tuushu's face. Untwitching. Unrelenting. Unbroken. "Levelled it out!"

"Go on, Link." Midna had her arms crossed and that infernal smile still on her face. "I thought you loved wordplay."

Link forced a smile and a chuckle, but when a satisfied Tuushu turned to lead them away, Link wiped that expression off with a frown. And Midna? She had both palms stifling what was surely yet another obnoxious cackle.


This second floor was half the size of the first and hadn't a single crack to allow in any light. Actually, it didn't seem damaged at all, aside from the slight crookedness of the floor that may or may not be all in Link's head. Even heavier cloth covered the windows, but there was a single light source in the centre of this room: the statue of a woman with a hooded cloak and bell sleeves cradling a glowing orb –a sol– with both hands. Her hood was down, exposing her flowing locks, pointed ears, and sharp –almost Hylian or Sheikah– eyes. Some Twili did have double-irised Hylian eyes, like Midna, but that was rare and not quite what was on display here.

"This is Ora Ozul," Monk Tuushu explained. "The first Twili and the first queen of the new monarchy."

"New monarchy?" Link asked. Strangely, Midna stiffened beside him.

"When our ancestors first arrived in this realm, we had no physical form," Tuushu began. "We were just wandering spirits. Shadows, you could say, without our humanity. We had a king back then. His name was Keres and it was he who led us to this place. He led every mission of exploration, swearing to find some great power that would allow his tribe to carve a passage back to their old dimension.

"But for many tempres, or maybe even orbis, all his expeditions amounted to fruitless wandering. The tribespeople grew weary, even with no physical form to wear down, believing that they were doomed to wander as spirits for all eternity.

"But one such tribeswoman, Ora, wanted to accept this realm as the their new home. She saw the sky not as hellfire, but as serene beauty, a perpetual… what do you call it? Sunset.

"And when she felt that desire, that conviction, to accept this realm as her new home, something reached out to her. A deep, primal, ancient magic spread its warmth to welcome her into it."

"The sol essence," Midna said.

"So," Link began, "she found one of those orbs and touched it?"

"Actually, the sol essence is an energy that permeates this land," Tuushu explained, "forming the gods that embody all life and movement in this realm." He gestured to the sol. "This orb, and other sols like this, was created as a conduit for that essence, so we could use it to ink our spells –based on the symbols of our gods– on our buildings, clothes, possessions, and even our skin." The monk sighed. "If only I could give you a tour of my tattoos. Explain what each one allows us to do."

"It's alright," Link said. "We can save it for when I – we," he gestured between himself and Midna, "bring back the twilight." He did want to know more, genuinely. 'Shadow magic' was synonymous with 'dark magic' back in Hyrule, but Link owed his life and the healing of his wounds to this shadow magic.

"Anyway, what happened to Ora and the king after she became part of the realm?" Link asked.

Tuushu turned around and beckoned Link after them. "For the rest of the story, we'll need to go to the final floor."


The third floor was cosier; a shy smaller than Link's house and two thirds the height. Here, there was an out-of-commission platform to the gong; a triangle bench with some flickering, fuzzy illusion of cracked pillars and a fanged cave; and a wall that was completely missing, as if the builders of this temple simply forgot to put it in. From that open wall facing the valley, a pier of ashy wood banded by smokey metal extended over the void like a pirate ship's plank. After doing a quick inspection, Tuushu assured Link that it was safe to walk along.

The valley was the gash between two scraggly, snow-capped mountain ranges. Darkness pooled in its depths, so it was a mystery just how far Link would fall before he'd smash against the bottom. It was… kind of a thrill. Like the horror stories Fado used to tell around the campfire.

"So this," Tuushu floated to Link's front and stretched out his arms, as if he was balancing five mountains upon them, "is the Mariana Valley."

Link stopped a safe foot from the edge, staring into the abyss. All around him were mountains. All around him was open air. Beneath him was an ocean of mystery. A mystery that, depending on how this lead for Eldin played out, would be all Link's to explore.

It was moments like these when Link clicked perfectly into the wild, wistful fantasies of his childhood. Gods, his hand was practically twitching to capture this moment in charcoal.

Come closer.

If only he could soar to those mountains. If only he could dive to those depths.

Don't you want to come closer?

He had no lantern that would guide him through the darkness, but maybe he didn't need one. He could explore by sound, touch, smell…

I'm waiting for you.

"Link!" Midna scolded. "Get away from the edge."

He was slammed into his own body, so hard that he swayed on his feet. Feet that were half hanging off the pier. When did he get that close? Flapping his arms did nothing to bring him away from the edge, so he did the next best thing. He fell. Backwards. On his ass.

Midna rushed around to his front. "Sols, Link! You're lucky I'm a shadow, otherwise you would've given me a heart attack!"

Oh really? Link smirked at her. "Aww, you really do care."

But she didn't take it like a poke. She took it like a slap to the face. Her hands clenched, her lips pursed, her eyes burned, as if she was about to shriek like a kettle. "Is that why you almost jumped?!"

She yelled so loud that it echoed, and on each side of the temple, a few chunks of snow fell from the sharp peaks.

Tuushu shushed her. "Now, now, Midna. Let's get him back in the temple first. I assure you that there's a reason why this happened."

When Link and the others were safe inside the third floor again, Tuushu addressed him tentatively. "Link, did you hear something from the valley depths?"

Tuushu knew? "Yeah…" Link said. "Someone telling me to come closer." Upon confessing, he twinged with shame. He had just made himself look like a fool, willing to jump to his death for some random whisper. Chosen heroes were supposed to be stronger than that. Have more willpower.

The monk hummed thoughtfully. "There have been occasional reports of people hearing voices on that platform from the valley below. Always saying the same thing. No one… No one ever came as close as you did to jumping."

So Link, the hero, was not only the fool who almost jumped to his death, but the first fool who almost jumped to his death?

"This is to say nothing of your strength of mind," Tuushu said. "It's possible that the light invasion may have… strengthened the one who haunts the valley's depths, which brings us to the purpose of this floor: surveillance. Watching over the valley far below.

"This here," he gestured at the flickering illusion, "is the entrance to the Temple of the Damned. We always have at least one monk surveying it at all times, and another stationed near the gong. However, that's been tricky to do with all those attacks as of late. Perhaps they were trying to distract us from something slipping out."

"Or in," Midna said. "You can narrowly escape the valley, but not the temple."

Tuushu nodded sagely. "Yes, but with our gorgeous skies now a blistering white, who knows what is or is not possible anymore?"

"Sorry, but could someone please explain this to me?" Link asked. "What exactly is down there?"

The monk licked their lips. "When Ora led her tribespeople into the embrace of the sol essence, there was one who opposed her. Violently. Even as a shadow, King Keres was still an exceedingly powerful mage. He slaughtered subjects who converted. He tied down anyone who attempted in tendrils of shadow.

"That was when Ora challenged him, right at this very peak. It was no easy feat; how can one cut through shadow? But the sol essence gave her the means. Because he rejected it with all his being, it slashed him, burned him, until he was a smoking shadow covered in gashes of teal. At that moment, he decided that enough was enough. He summoned every last vestige of strength he had and conjured a spell that would annihilate everything in a kilometre radius, where most of the tribes folk were watching the battle. They hadn't established warp portals yet, so there was no escape. Ora did the only thing she could."

"Which was?" Link asked.

Tuushu nodded towards the pier. "She threw him into the valley, and he fell so far that they never even saw the explosion of his spell, nor if he cancelled its casting."

Around the illusion, Tuushu paced. "Centuries passed. Twilux found its identity and foundation and sought to record its history through more concrete means than oral tradition. The Mariana Valley was one our unexplored sights. We were hoping to find King Keres's remains, or the crater from his spell, but instead we found… that." Tuushu pointed at the flickering temple. "We do not know who built it. We don't even know who could have, but every time we sought answers…" They trailed off.

"They were trapped there," Midna said, "never to be seen again."

"Not exactly," Tuushu said. "There was one who came back, telling tales of an unspeakable evil."

Midna crossed her arms. "Well, unless you want Link and I to go in there blind, you better speak it."

Tuushu's eyes went wide. "You mean you're… You can't possibly be thinking of going down there! We're lucky to have a surveillance spell on the entrance. Casting that was the last reasonable thing the expedition crew ever did!"

She examined her claws, not even sparing a glance Tuushu's way. "Oh? And where did their reason go?"

"They… They turned on each other. These journeys through the snow, ice, and shadow are a test of utmost patience and endurance, and this party of established explorers did it all, but when they entered the temple, they never stopped to observe, never stopped for anything except… their darkest impulses.

"Their fate is one we have only ever cast upon the very worst criminals in our history, who committed the most heinous acts with no sense of remorse." Tuushu sighed and pushed their glasses up their nose. "The valley reminds us that we're not all that detached from the worst of humanity. We all have a demonic entity within us, one that wishes harm upon those we hate, but our better nature always keeps those thoughts as just that: thoughts. It takes more than a thought to… tear apart your closest allies limb from limb, to smash someone's head until they are long dead, to…" He shuddered. "You cannot go down there. There's absolutely no proof that the source of Tenebria's strife is even–"

The illusion stirred. Boulders were rolling out of the mouth of the cave. No. Not boulders. Glowgors.

Midna gestured at the illusion, a grim-yet-smug look upon her face. "And that is all the proof Link and I need." She turned towards the pier, arms crossed. "We set out tomorrow. End of discussion."


The monks gave it about a circum before the next trickle of glowgors attacked the temple, and they had noticed Wolfie's heavy eyes. Monk Tuushu latched onto Link's bedtime as the perfect excuse to not converse about that cursed temple any longer (coward) and ushered him to the basement dormitory of hammocks. It was a miserable little place lit with archaic, make-shift torches (because the regular lights were also a flickering mess) but being below ground at least made it toastier than the above floors, or so Midna gathered when Link breathed a sigh of relief and took off his heavy fur.

As he shed himself of his tunic, chainmail, and boots, he and Midna chatted a little about the next leg of their journey, but in a purely practical sense. How long it would take, how to ration Link's food, how many torches they should request from the monks (because Midna couldn't summon a solsdamned ball of light in this impish form). They discussed everything short of the sinister effects of the temple awaiting them in the valley below.

Granted, Midna still hadn't quite forgiven him for almost jumping into the valley and then making a nonchalant joke about it right after, but after hearing Tuushu's explanation, she at least understood that Link wasn't totally at fault. That didn't make things any easier. No. It made them worse.

Yes, by now Link had proven himself, having liberated one province already, but neither Twilux nor Hyrule would be rescued by some weak-willed hero. He might have strength in swordplay, but what of his strength of mind? Back in Hyrule, he was so easily swayed by unfounded lies, and almost incapable of seeing a perspective beyond his own nose. Had he truly grown enough of a backbone, enough of a brain, to handle this?

Link bit his lip, wincing, as he gently tugged off his left bracer. Underneath, his wrist was shiny and raw. Midna frowned. "What happened there?"

"About a decem of wearing a cuff on my right paw," Link said.

"Oh…" Midna tried, really tried, to not let the guilt weigh on her too much. Picking Twilit shackles open with shadow magic was a highly specialised skill. One which Nova didn't have. But Midna? She did have that skill, that precision, burned into her muscle memory. Her combat mentor, Cygnus, insisted that she learn how to break herself out of any binding in case a certain politician went rogue.

Midna did have the power to get that cuff off Link. She did all along, or at least her true form did. Who knew how well she could cast that spell in her pathetic little imp form? One that was missing many of the tattoos of her true self, and slightly warped the rest so that casting magic with them always felt a little off.

Yes, that was it. That was her reason. It definitely wasn't because she was negligent. It definitely wasn't because she was ashamed. It definitely wasn't because breaking his cuff during that decem-long opportunity would've revealed that she could've done it way back in Ordon, and it would be yet another strike in favour of selfish, insufferable, cruel little Midna. Just as their relationship was finally shifting into something less sour, she couldn't afford to give him yet another reason to begrudge her.

Those weak excuses only intensified the guilt squirming inside her.

She offered to bandage his wrist with shadows and explained what that meant very carefully. To her surprise, he agreed. Still, even after taking a few drops of midnight tonic and visibly mellowing, he gnawed his lip as the dark sheets slithered over his flaky, shiny, cracked skin. It moulded to his shape, like a band of black paint around an unblemished wrist. He examined his new cuff in the torchlight, turning it, closing and flexing his arm, caressing it with his other hand. He still winced, because the damaged skin was still there underneath it all, but at least it wouldn't be getting agitated by his blankets, bracer, or any dust floating about. He met her gaze with a tired smile. "Thanks."

Midna nodded curtly. "You did a good job getting up here."

"You did a good job defending me, earlier." He went quiet for a moment, scratching his neck and staring at the floor. "Thanks for having my back today," he finally said.

"Don't mention it." He smiled, like they were okay. Almost like they were buds! They were not buds. "No, seriously, don't mention it." She flew in his face, arm crossed, eyes narrowed. "Your back breaks, and my realm shatters. That is the depth of our relationship, okay?"

Link rolled his eyes. He was writing her off as some 'princess' with an attitude problem again. "Okay."

"Hey, I'm just keeping your expectations in check. Don't dive into a puddle expecting an abyss."

At least his grin was gone. He shrugged. "Just trying to be polite."

Link shimmied his legs crossed in the hammock, cracked open his sketchbook, and withdrew his charcoal. She had learned by now that this meant he wanted to be alone, and that was fine by her. She felt not one wisp of rejection as she left him.

She drifted out of the dormitory, on her way to the pier to interrogate that pit of darkness until she too knew what foul whispers almost made her realm's only hope leap. Her tutors and historians had failed to detail what exactly made that valley so sinister.

But when she rose into the final floor, a voice stopped her. "May we speak alone?"

The way Tuushu said it –stern yet graceful– made her freeze. That was almost how Zant would say it in the middle of a council meeting whenever Midna dared to say something he found disagreeable, whenever he would pull her into the adjacent private room, seal the muffling spell he had personally installed, and then berate her until she came out hunched and hollow and suddenly so open to whatever proposal he had made to begin with (of which she had forgotten by then).

At least Tuushu's eyes were kinder. Seemed kinder. Could be a mask. Still, Midna nodded, and Tuushu patted the stool beside him. An odd courtesy in the current state of the world, since they'd both be more comfortable in the shadows, and chairs did nothing to ease a body in limbo, but even the Twili didn't have a system of etiquette for an occasion such as the light invasion.

Midna settled onto it, knees to her chest, arms twining them closer. It only emphasised how scarcely her impish form filled out the seat. Sols, if Tuushu asked her why she even had this form, then she might give King Keres's ghost a new playdate.

"There was something I should've mentioned earlier about the last team to explore the valley depths," Tuushu said. "The corrupting influence of King Keres was but a rumour back then, but one we took with the utmost seriousness. When a band of Twilux's most prestigious adventurers offered to explore the valley depths, they were vetted by our best doctors and shamans for the strength of their bonds and minds. The conclusion they came to was that no group of people in the history of this realm got along better than this team.

"They knew each other's strengths and vulnerabilities inside and out. They had seen each other through their best and worst and came out stronger together… and yet every single one of them were lost to that cursed place."

"What about the one who came back?" Midna asked flatly. "The one who lived to tell the tale?"

Tuushu's fists tightened in their lap. "She came to confess. Confess that she lived because she was the most brutal of all. How she ripped and tore the people she loved more than anything, who she wanted to spend every moment she could exploring with. She came to this very monastery and begged for divine punishment, but when the monks of old said they could not do that, she told them, 'Then you will tell anyone else who seeks to venture down there our story.'

"The monks gave her food and shelter, but the next day, she was gone. No sign of her except for her cold-climate boots standing at the tip of the pier."

A well-timed breeze fluttered the decorative cloth strips just above the door to the pier, as if inviting the two of them to envision those very boots, or follow the pier to the same fate, but Midna was a shadow. She couldn't feel the breeze, and thus couldn't be tempted by it.

"So let me guess," she began. "You saw that Link and I get along about as well as oil and water. We snip, we snap, we snark. We're several cuts below the dream team that lost their marbles down in that temple, and because of that, you think we'll set the new record for fastest and bloodiest betrayal."

Midna floated from her stool and into the doorway, hands on her hips. "But I'm willing to bet that those oh-so-perfect adventurers had some ugly resentment bubbling beneath the surface. They were just too goody-goody to admit it."

She turned to Tuushu, her face a half-sneer. "I already know my darkest self. I know her very well, thank-you very much. There is absolutely nothing that valley can throw at me that I haven't dealt with before. As for Link? If he loses himself, he'll have a shit time trying to kill his own shadow. That's a risk we're both willing to take."

Tuushu sighed deeply. "Do you really think you know him? Or yourself?"

Midna spun away from the monk, arms crossed. "Not quite." She floated into the harsh light, welcoming the painful prickle at her shadowy cloak. "But down there, I'll get to say hello to the parts that really matter."


A/N: Midna, just admit that you give a shit about the wolf boy!

I have mixed feelings about the whole "Midna didn't break Link's cuff earlier" thing because past me thought the moment she does it would make for great symbolism when she actually sees Link as her equal but current me is kinda like "but is 'symbolism' really a good enough excuse for her to... not do it as soon as she knew it was causing harm?" Alas, by then, I had already posted Chapter 20 which planted that seed. Now I just have to work with it. So here it is.

Also sorry to everyone else that I have to address this next bit in my Very Public Author's Notes but to that one guest reviewer who asked why I haven't updated for over 10 days, please make sure you understand how long a fortnight is and thus how often "fortnightly updates" actually are before you assume that I haven't updated on time. (Also you probably weren't aware but asking authors when the new update is is actually really frowned upon in the fanfiction community and is often discouraging to authors.) I really wish I could've resolved this with you privately but there is no way for me to do so for anyone who doesn't use an account. To all future guest reviewers, please do not ask me questions (unless they're rhetorical) because I cannot respond directly via PM. If you want to comment on my stories and ask questions without an account, then you can do it on Archive of Our Own where I can actually respond to guest comments (and if you enter your email, you'll get an alert when I do).